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On this episode of the SoulScape podcast, host Paul D. Lowe - International Celebrant – talks to Peter Shankman about how to use the opposite of being still, creating a space and quietening the mind, to build better businesses. KEY TAKEAWAYS I think there’s a place for zen and tranquillity but, for many people, that’s not the first place they would choose to go. I’m at my calmest when I’m at my most productive. The concept of how my brain works is the premise of “deep work”. When I’m put into a situation that allows me to focus on one specific thing, and only that one thing, I’m at my best by a factor of 100. I was diagnosed with ADHD in my late-30s, growing up in public schools in New York, I’d be told to sit down because I was disrupting the class. There was no diagnosis at that point, I’d always be told by my parents to stop procrastinating and leaving everything until the last minute. What I realise know is that leaving everything until the last minute gives me the dopamine hit that I need to get it done. The problem with labels is that they tend to mis-label, they box people into one category, and people rarely fit into one category. Simply saying you’ve been “diagnosed” – people get diagnosed with cancer. Having a neurodiverse brain means you’re faster, you can do things that other people can’t, as long as you know how to use your brain. I don’t consider that a diagnosis – you’re not diagnosed with winning the lottery! Everything I’ve done, whether it’s been a success or a failure, has been a way to learn from it. I want to work with people who learn and understand that it’s perfectly OK to screw up – it’s supposed to happen. The only downside is not learning from your screw ups, as long as you’re learning you’re fine. BEST MOMENTS ‘Studies say that when you’re interrupted, it takes upwards of 22 minutes to get back onto that flow state of work. So, if you get interrupted once an hour, you’re only productive for 20 minutes out of the hour'. ‘Some people who procrastinate do it because it benefits them; it makes their work stronger and more productive'. ‘I’m focused on helping kids understand that just because they have a different brain doesn’t mean they’re broken, it means they’re gifted. If they understand that at an early age it’ll save them a lot of trouble'. ‘You have to learn how to stop giving a fuck about what other people say'. ABOUT THE GUEST Peter Shankman is a top keynote speaker in marketing, social media, customer service, and neurodiversity in the workplace. The New York Times has called Peter “a rock star who knows everything about social media, and then some.” He is a 6x bestselling author, entrepreneur and corporate in-person and virtual keynote speaker, focusing on neurodiversity in the workplace and customer experience. With three start-up launches and exits under his belt, Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about the customer experience, social media, PR, marketing, advertising, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and the new Neurodiverse Economy. https://www.Shankman.com ABOUT THE HOST Despite a painful, traumatic childhood, Paul D. Lowe has found inner peace and now dedicates himself to honouring the journeys of others. SoulScape Ceremonies – along with this SoulScape podcast – embodies his mission to capture the essence of life, love, and legacy. More than moments of celebration, SoulScape Ceremonies is a soulful landscape that co-creates meaningful experiences where every life is honoured – every voice valued. Through his philanthropy, coaching, and myriad of books, Paul has positively impacted thousands. His SoulScape podcast shines a light on inspiring stories, encouraging listeners to embrace their own journeys and legacies. As the founder of the non-profit World Game-Changers, Paul also produced many podcast episodes under that banner. As an International Celebrant and founder of SoulScape Ceremonies, Paul and his world-class team create deeply personal ceremonies that honour your life’s milestones – celebrating each unique journey – with a focus on life, love, and legacy. Whether marking new life beginnings, committing to a loving relationship, celebrating a life well-lived, or simply embracing personal achievements, SoulScape Ceremonies offers a soulful, empathetic approach that will resonate deeply within your heart – leaving beautiful, lasting memories… Contact Methods: https://Paul-Lowe.com https://WorldGameChangers.org This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
Send us a textEpisode 516"Home Alone"Cinematographer: Julio Macatwww.mmcpodcast.comJulio Macat's (ASC) first film was the huge box-office hit HOME ALONE. He then went on to photograph HOME ALONE 2, ACE VENTURA, Pet Detective, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR , THE WEDDING PLANNER, CATS and DOGS, BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE and WEDDING CRASHERS all of which opened #1 at the box office in the U.S. The total domestic box office receipts of the films he has photographed is approximately $1.7 billion. Macat's extensive credits include the features SO, I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER; MY FELLOW AMERICANS; the remake of MIRACLE ON 34TH ST; BECAUSE I SAID SO, and SMOTHER, both with Diane Keaton; and the action film BALISTIC, X vs SEVER. In moving from comedy to more dramatic work, Macat was asked by Antonio Banderas to photograph his directorial debut, CRAZY IN ALABAMA, a film about the civil right's movement in the 60's and also hired by Adam Shankman to film Nicholas Spark's A WALK TO REMEMBER. Macat also collaborated with Shankman on THE WEDDING PLANNER and BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE with Steve Martin. Julio Macat has worked with numerous other directors on their feature film debuts, among them Jason Moore, (PITCH PERFECT) Tom Shadyac, Raja Gosnell, James Keach, Kaos, Vince DiMeglio and Lawrence Guterman. He has also photographed the films MOONLIGHT and VALENTINO, ONLY THE LONELY, the Morgan Freeman heist drama THE CODE , directed by Mimi Leder, and BLENDED, with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. Other projects include the comedies DADDY'S HOME 1 and 2 and HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 for director Sean Anders with Will Ferrell, THE BOSS and LIFE OF THE PARTY with Melissa McCarthy and the upcoming Animated feature SHERLOCK GNOMES for which along with WRECK IT RALPH he was contracted as Visual and Lighting consultant by DISNEY and PARAMOUNT.. A native of Argentina and of Italian descent, Macat began his career at age 19, working his way up the ranks under such distinguished veterans as Mario Tosi, ASC and Academy Award¨-winning cinematographers John Alcott, BSC and Chris Menges, BSC. After studying filmmaking at UCLA, at the age of 26, Macat became a camera operator collaborating exclusively with Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky on four films, including RUNAWAY TRAIN, SHY PEOPLE and TANGO and CASH where he was promoted to film second unit photography. As cinematographer, Macat's early work included numerous music videos and concerts for performers such as Peter Gabriel, Melissa Etheridge, Phil Collins, Hall & Oats, Van Halen and Alanis Morrisette. He has photographed commercials in Europe, South America, Mexico, South Africa and extensively in the U.S., and has also directed many second units for feature films and commercials. Macat is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers and AMPAS since 2000 He is fluent in Spanish, Italian and some French. He lives in Los Angeles and Massachusetts with his wife, actress Elizabeth Perkins. #homealone #merrychristmas #christmas #homealone2Reach out to Darek Thomas and Monday Morning Critic!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mondaymorningcritic/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mondaymorningcritic/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mondaymorningcriticMondaymorningcritic@gmail.com
In this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Cassie Shankman (aka DJ Cassandra), a dynamic Austin-based DJ, composer, producer, sound curator, educator, and all-around creative entrepreneur. Cassie is well-versed in the art of sound, as she is the founder of Sounds by Cassandra, an audio agency offering a diverse range of services, including DJ performances, sound curation, and original music composition. She is also the co-founder of Picardy, a web app designed to help users develop music theory skills. Cassie's passion for music has taken her to amazing places, and in this episode, she shares her journey, her entrepreneurial insights, and her advice for young creatives looking to tune into this industry. !
Can digital PR platforms truly transform your business? Tune in to uncover how the evolution of these platforms, starting with Peter Shankman's pioneering HARO, has reshaped the landscape for design professionals seeking press coverage. You'll gain insights into Shankman's latest venture, Source of Sources (SOS), which aims to rekindle HARO's original accessibility. As we navigate this transformative PR terrain, we also address the pivotal role of AI, cautioning against over-reliance on shortcuts that promise effortless media placements without the requisite effort.Join us as we explore the nuances of leveraging platforms like Quoted, Connectively, and a nod to Harrow's evolution. Discover how Quoted's approval-based system, though intricate and costly, offers rich insights for crafting effective pitches. Learn about Connectively's AI-driven approach to matching journalists and sources, and the emphasis on creating original content to maintain credibility. With actionable steps to simplify your marketing and boost business growth, we also invite you to enhance your strategies through our Designer Discussions Academy membership. Stay with us for practical tools and insights tailored to elevate your design business.If you would like to get the links and show notes for this episode, click on the link below: https://www.designerdiscussions.com/episodes/episode-125-The-evolution-of-digital-PRThe links mentioned in the episodeSource of SourcesQwotedConnectivelyDesigner Discussions AcademyTransform your marketing with Designer Discussions Academy. In weekly face-to-face sessions, we equip busy business owners with cutting-edge PR strategies, marketing insights, and time-saving tools to not just work in your business, but on your business. Join us to outshine competitors and elevate your business.Join us for our weekly live sessions and workshops: https://www.designerdiscussionsmarketing.studio/pages/academyDesigner Discussions is an educational interior design podcast on marketing, PR and related business topics. We also provide in-depth, actionable products in the Marketing Studio including time-saving templates and guides to help design professionals grow their businesses. Download our FREE Client Avatar Guide https://designerdiscussionsmarketing.studio/store. Designer Discussions is a partnership of three experts: Jason Lockhart, CEO of KABMS; Maria Martin, founder of DesignAppy; and Mirjam Lippuner, founder of Get Ink DIY
In today's episode I had the pleasure of speaking with the great Peter Shankman. Peter is a renaissance man. He is also a fellow ADHD'er. Mr. Shankman is a brilliant ADHD'er who has helped many neurodiverse professionals see their omnipotential with compassion and grace. Whether it's the CEO who needs help empowering his employees to create magical customer moments, the Fortune 100 that needs a better understanding of neurodiversity in the workplace, or the billion dollar brand wanting to better keep up with the times, Peter gets the call to come in and help make things better. Peter is one of the most sought after speakers on the customer economy and neurodiversity in the workplace. Peter has keynoted events for corporations ranging from startups to Fortune 50s in more than twenty five countries around the world. He speaks at both digital keynotes and in-person keynote presentations.
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Discover the seismic shift in the PR universe with the transformation of HARO into Connectively, and the ripple effects it's created across the industry. Our PR whisperer, Miriam, takes you through the dramatic evolution of this vital service, from its 2008 inception by PR guru Peter Shankman to its controversial revamp by Cision. Get ready to grasp the full implications it holds for your business and PR strategy.As we unravel the layers of HARO's metamorphosis, we'll also consider Shankman's bold response: the launch of Help Every Reporter Out (HERO). You'll get a front-row seat to the community's reaction, strategies to adapt, and whether HERO might just save the day for PR professionals seeking media connections. Join Miriam, Maria, and Jason for an insightful tour through the latest PR landscape—it's an episode packed with industry intel you won't want to miss!If you would like to get the links and show notes for this episode, click on the link below:https://www.designerdiscussions.com/episodes/episode-114-HARO-is-Dead-Best-Ways-to-Get-Quick-Press-Right-NowReference Links from the Episode:https://helpeveryreporter.com/https://www.connectively.us/Sign-up for Designer Discussions Interior Design Media Opportunities service: https://www.designerdiscussionsmarketing.studio/subscribeOther Episodes Discussed in this episode:https://www.designerdiscussions.com/episodes/episode-94-top-10-pr-questionshttps://www.designerdiscussions.com/episodes/episode-92-the-quickest-and-easiest-way-to-get-presshttps://www.designerdiscussions.com/episodes/episode-69-how-to-get-found-by-the-mediahttps://www.designerdiscussions.com/episodes/episode-10-how-to-get-press-as-an-Transform your marketing with Designer Discussions Academy. In weekly face-to-face sessions, we equip busy business owners with cutting-edge PR strategies, marketing insights, and time-saving tools to not just work in your business, but on your business. Join us to outshine competitors and elevate your business.Join us for our weekly live sessions and workshops: https://www.designerdiscussionsmarketing.studio/pages/academyDesigner Discussions is an educational interior design podcast on marketing, PR and related business topics. We also provide in-depth, actionable products in the Marketing Studio including time-saving templates and guides to help design professionals grow their businesses. Download our FREE Client Avatar Guide https://designerdiscussionsmarketing.studio/store. Designer Discussions is a partnership of three experts: Jason Lockhart, CEO of KABMS; Maria Martin, founder of DesignAppy; and Mirjam Lippuner, founder of Get Ink DIY
That Solo Life: Episode 247 Everything Old is New Again In this Episode Karen Swim, APR, of Solo PR, and Michelle Kane, of Voice Matters delve into the importance of getting back to basics in our PR and marketing businesses. Today's conversation is sparked by an email from Peter Shankman, the founder of the original "Help a Reporter Out" platform, which was eventually sold to a large corporation. Shankman has now launched a new platform called "Help Every Reporter Out," and in his announcement he shared his “back to basics” inspiration and how it led him to return to something he was no longer doing. As PR professionals, we often find ourselves constantly reinventing our workflows, tools, and client work in an effort to keep up with the ever-evolving industry. But new is not always better. Sometimes returning the old things can improve not only how we do our jobs but how we feel about them. We delve into the topic of technology, staying true to our natural skill sets and passions in our careers, and how the basics include having a supportive community of fellow professionals. Episode Highlights: [00:00:18] - Old but new. The value of getting back to basics and the importance of realigning and retooling. [00:02:09] - Be a hero. How Peter Shankman, Help Every Reporter Out inspired us to be a hero to ourselves by focusing on our areas of expertise. [00:05:04] - Reevaluating Tools and Subscriptions. All the shiny new tools hold so much promise and you can accumulate a pile of clutter. [00:09:35] - Recognizing Natural Skillsets. It is important to recognize and focus on your natural skillsets and passions in order to maintain satisfaction and success in a career. [00:10:29] - Scaling Back for Success. Karen and Michelle discuss the idea of scaling back team members or business models to maintain a manageable workload and find fulfillment in solo work. Resources: Help Every Reporter Out (HERO) - free sign-up for PR Pros and Journalists Back to basics in your business model -From Solo PR to Agency and Back Again Enjoyed the episode? Please leave a review here - even a sentence helps. Share and tag us (@SoloPR, @SoloPRPro) on social media so that we can thank you personally! Your support helps us keep bringing you insightful content every week. Thank you for tuning in! Looking for more insights and support for your solo PR biz? Head over to Solo PR Pro and become part of our community. Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter for the latest tips and trends.
Everyone is psychic! We are all born with gifts and abilities, but do not always recognize or accept them. Join host Joelle, The Viberarian, for a weekly conversation with people who have opened to their psychic gifts and abilities. Hear their fascinating stories and take a peek behind the veil. Special Guest: Leslie Shankman Leslie shares -"After helping many people die in a more conscious manner, and being in the field of transcendence so deeply while accompanying their dying, my burning question became, "How can I be a boundaryless self"? ...Meaning how can I be in my body, but concurrently feel and know "the beyond" more profoundly? In 2013, Grace brought me the answer in the form of a Stellar Cosmology offered by two dear souls in Hungary. I have since learned to be "grounded in boundlessness" and have become: Ambassador, Guide, Teacher of: Stellar Nations Cosmology, Galactic History as Reflected in the Stars, Stars as Maps and Mirrors of our Light Body, Reader of the Antares Code; Profile of Stellar Remembering Field The Psychic Inside Show airs on Tuesdays, at 8 p.m. ET, on The Viberary Radio Network. Stream live on your PC or mobile phone. Call (646) 787-8436 to listen,press #1 to join the conversation. My special guests will be taking your questions about their "psychic life". The VIberary Radio Network Upcoming broadcast schedule. Join the #GoodVibeTribe and #GetLifted
Join André Brisson, The Impulsive Thinker, in a conversation with Peter Shankman, an acclaimed author and entrepreneur with ADHD. This episode delves into the world of neurodiversity, particularly ADHD, and its impact on the workplace and personal development. Shankman shares insights from his books "Faster Than Normal" and "The Boy with a Faster Brain," exploring how understanding and embracing ADHD can lead to extraordinary success in business and life. Key Points Covered: · Shankman discusses his motivation for writing "The Boy with a Faster Brain," aiming to help children with ADHD realize their unique strengths. · Shankman introduces his new start-up company, Mental Capital, which aids businesses in appreciating and integrating neurodiverse talents. · The conversation highlights the need for a paradigm shift in how society and businesses perceive neurodiversity, seeing it not as a disability but as a different set of cognitive abilities. André's Closing Thoughts: · The importance of creating supportive environments for neurodiverse individuals. · Recognizing and valuing different cognitive abilities can lead to more effective and inclusive workplaces. · Empowerment through understanding one's unique abilities and leveraging them for personal and professional growth. "What do you suck at? Can you own it and let your team know about it?" This question encourages listeners to embrace their weaknesses and turn them into strengths through teamwork and understanding. Peter Shankman can be reached on his website or LinkedIn and his books can be found here: "Faster Than Normal" and "The Boy with a Faster Brain," Check out the ADHD Transform Journey Program that is now available. We would like to hear from you! Please send show ideas, questions, or feedback to podcast@tacticalbts.com and join our mailing list here! Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Check out our website at Tactical Breakthroughs. André Brisson can also be found on LinkedIn. You can find other Podcast Episodes here!
The New York Times has called Peter Shankman "a rockstar who knows everything about social media and then some." He is a 6x best selling author, entrepreneur and corporate keynote speaker, focusing on Neurodiversity in the workplace, customer service, and the new and emerging customer and neurotatypical economies. With three startup launches and exits under his belt, (most notably Help a Reporter Out) Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about customer experience, social media, PR, marketing, advertising, and the Neurodiversity. Additionally, Peter is the Futurist in Residence at Price Benowitz and BluShark Digital. Web: www.Shankman.com Peter's sixth book, (and his first children's book,) came out in mid-March of this year. “The Boy With the Faster Brain” is a heartwarming story about a young boy named Peter, who discovers that his ADHD brain, which was always getting him into trouble in school, is actually a super-powerful tool that he can use to achieve anything he wants - as long as he learns how to use it the right way. (And yes, it's obviously very much autobiographical.) It's the children's version of Peter's previous bestseller on ADHD, “Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge your Focus, Productivity and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain” (Random House, 2017.) In addition to his passion for helping people and companies find success, some of Peter's highlights also include: • Founder of HARO - Help A Reporter Out, which became the standard for thousands of journalists looking for sources prior to being acquired three years after launch • Faster than Normal - The Internet's #1 podcast on ADHD, focusing on the superpowers and gifts of having a "faster than normal brain,” which has helped thousands of people all around the world realize that having a neurodiverse brain is actually a gift, not a curse. • The ShankMinds Breakthrough Network, an elite, online mastermind of thought leaders, business experts, and change makers Peter is a worldwide influencer and/or spokesperson for several global brands including Adobe, Sylvania, National Car Rental, Manscaped.com, Sealface, Thule, and many others. Finally, Peter is a father, a 2x Ironman triathlete, a class B licensed skydiver, and has a pretty serious Peloton addiction. When he's not traveling around the world speaking to companies big and small, he's based in NYC, where he was born and raised, with his ten year old daughter and three-year-old dog, both of whom consistently refuse him access to his couch. ► Luxury Women Handbag Discounts: https://www.theofficialathena.... ► Become an Equus Coach®: https://equuscoach.com/?rfsn=7... ► For $5 in ride credit, download the Lyft app using my referral link: https://www.lyft.com/ici/ASH58... ► Review Us: https://itunes.apple.com/us/po... ► Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/c/AshSa... ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1lov... ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashsa... ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/1loveAsh ► Blog: http://www.ashsaidit.com/blog #atlanta #ashsaidit #theashsaiditshow #ashblogsit #ashsaidit®
Today for a special episode of Make me a Musical Jess is joined by two members of the cast of the Funny Girl National Tour Hannah Shankman and Annaliese Wilbur. Since they both have deep Michigan connections we created a musical out of the State of Michigan! It becomes a Football romance, and you won't believe what happens! Be sure to listen! See Funny Girl on Tour: https://funnygirlonbroadway.com/tour/ Find Annaliese on social media: https://www.instagram.com/annaliese.wilbur/ Find Hannah on Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/hannahbshank/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Get ready to meet ADHD Royalty, Peter Shankman! He is known globally for his entrepreneurial prowess, and work on educating himself and the world about ADHD. I've known of Peter's work for years and it's truly an honour to speak with him!He wants both kids and parents to know that a diagnosis of ADHD doesn't mean you're broken, but brilliant! That if you have an ADHD brain, you have been given a gift of a brain that's equal to a Ferrari, but society and the school system wants these kids to fit into a “Honda Accord” brain! I love that metaphor, and if you have a kiddo with this diagnosis, you know exactly what he's talking about!Peter's message to parents is that neurodiversity brings gifts and we need to have unwavering love, support and advocacy for our kids. Using this superpower for good means we focus on feeding that brain with exercise, protein, nutrition and calming techniques. For a download of Peter's article, Ten Ways to be Happier When You Live/Love Someone Diagnosed With ADHD, visit the Parent Toolbox. www.parent-toolbox.comAbout Peter ShankmanPeter Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you find the best traits of ADHD and work really hard to make them benefit you. By the time Peter was diagnosed as ADHD he had started and sold two companies and realized that all the differences that formerly labeled him as a troublemaker were actually his greatest assets. After Peter sold his third company, (Help a Reporter Out,) he decided to focus on really understanding this “faster brain” of his, and learning exactly what it could do. From that, the "Faster Than Normal" podcast and bestselling book of the same name were born. Since then, Peter has written numerous best-selling books and “Faster than Normal” is the Internet's #1 podcast on ADHD. Peter believes that everyone has gifts, potential, and abilities far beyond what society has deemed “normal,” and strives to help bring those gifts to life in as many people as he can.Social Media:Website: www.Shankman.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petershankmanFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeterShankmanInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/petershankman/Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/petershankmanTwitter: https://twitter.com/petershankman Thanks for listening! For more on Robbin, her work and free resources, keep reading!READY FOR YOUR FAMILY CHECK UP CALL? If you're feeling burnt out by bad behavior, worn down from constant battles and bickering and you've struggled to get the cooperation, respect and obedience you want from your kids, I've been there too. It might be time to learn new tools (that you've never been taught) to help you get your kids to listen to you, build teamwork, and grow the harmony in your home. https://parentingforconnection.as.me/CheckupcallFREE GUIDE FOR PARENTS OF STRONG-WILLED KIDS: “How to Turn a NO into Cooperation” go to
In this enlightening episode of "Find Your Finish Line," I sit down with the dynamic Peter Shankman to delve deep into the world of ADHD. Shankman, renowned for his achievements and candidness about his ADHD journey, shares how he transformed what many see as a challenge into a remarkable strength. From rigorous exercise routines to personal anecdotes, Shankman offers a fresh perspective on neurodiversity, emphasizing its potential as a gift and the importance of embracing individual differences. As the conversation unfolds, you'll be captivated by Shankman's tales from the triathlon world, where he underscores the significance of personal goals over sheer competition. This episode is not just about understanding ADHD; it's about celebrating our unique paths, finding our own finish lines, and the incredible stories that inspire us along the way. Don't miss this deep dive into the mind of a man who truly believes in turning challenges into opportunities. Follow Peter: Website: https://www.shankman.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/petershankman Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeterShankman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petershankman/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petershankman/
Things have been heating up — literally — since Sabrina Shankman, our latest podcast guest, began covering climate change a decade ago. The scientific community has presented indisputable evidence that climate change is the result of carbon emissions from human activity. News organizations have committed more resources to covering the complex topic. And climate deniers and the misinformation they spread have evolved along with the conversation.Shankman, who covers climate change at The Boston Globe, addresses these topics and more in this podcast episode.The science proving climate change is real has been around for decades, but it's taken society and the news media a while to catch up. But with wildfires, flooding, and other extreme weather events on the rise, the climate crisis has come knocking on our doors.“When I was first a climate change reporter, I was covering the Arctic because it was a way to tell the story of climate change in the place where it was happening. Now, I can tell the story in Boston because it's happening in Boston, it's happening everywhere."But as with any global issue that impacts economies, governments and society, misinformation and disinformation are part of the story. Getting reliable information from credible sources is key.“You need to be interrogating the information that you're receiving. You have to say, ‘Okay, well maybe this information seems valid, but it's coming with a perspective. What are some other perspectives?'”Listen in to find out why climate change isn't just a big story, it's the story.Additional reading:‘Nothing like this has ever happened before': The world's oceans are at record-high temps, The Boston Globe, Sabrina ShankmanMass Die-Off of Puffins Raises More Fears About Arctic's Warming Climate, Inside Climate News, Sabrina ShankmanFumes in South Portland, Inside Climate News, Sabrina ShankmanIs that a fact? is a production of the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education nonprofit building a national movement to create a more news-literate America. Our host is Darragh Worland, our producer is Mike Webb, our editor is Timothy Kramer, and our theme music is by Eryn Busch.
Steve Shankman tells us about all the upcoming concerts coming to St. Louis brought to you by Contemporary Productions
U Guys! This week's episode features a special Pride edition of the BroadwayWorld Recap, brought to you by BroadwayWorld.com! Then, Jayke is joined by Bway performer, Hannah Shankman, to talk about her incredible career on Broadway, The West End, and across the country! Hannah shares about her time in Les Mis, covering both Fantine and Eponine, as well as what it was like to cross the pond with Hair The Musical on The West End. She touches on learning to pace herself, both onstage and off, and how being patient has been a key component to her success. She also shares what it was like to be covered in fake tattoos every night as the original Tattooed Lady in Sideshow on Broadway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Steve Shankman joins the show to talk about his experiences with the great Tina Turner
Having ADD or ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Hear from people all around the globe, from every walk of life, in every profession, from Rock Stars to CEOs, from Teachers to Politicians, who have learned how to unlock the gifts of their ADD and ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage, to build businesses, become millionaires, or simply better their lives. Over the past month, we have been fortunate enough to be sponsored by Skylight Frame. [Check it out at: https://www.skylightframe.com] And guys, if you need a calendar for your family, for your kids, if your kids are neurodiverse- look at skylightframe.com! You order it, you hang it on your wall. It connects to your WIFI. You import your calendars, you add chore lists. My daughter knows all her chores. She knows everything she has to do. There's no more fights, no more arguments. She looks at the chores. She does them. She clicks the little button, the little touch screen, and it means that she's done and she gets her Roblox cuz that pretty much is what kids exist on today under the age of 12. They exist on, on Robux and, and apparently high quality mac and cheese. Apparently, you know, regular mac and cheese that we ate as kids. No, that's not good enough anymore. Skyline Frame is awesome. Use code PeterShankman at checkout. That will give you up to $30 off. I love the thing. You can also throw up all your photos on it. Uh, so when you're not using the calendar, it just. Scrolls your entire life by you and it looks pretty cool. It's in our kitchen. When I wake up at two in the morning to go get some cold water, I see a photo of me and my daughter or my dog, or my late cat, NASA, and it's pretty awesome. Makes my night. So https://www.skylightframe.com code: PeterShankman up to 30 bucks off. You will not regret this. If you get it, send me a note, let me know that you have it, and uh, I'll send you a photo for it. All right, again thank you to Skylight Frame! Enter discount code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off https://www.skylightframe.com Cortney Weinbaum (she/her) is the lead author of a new RAND Corporation report on Neurodiversity and National Security (link). She is a senior management scientist and senior national security researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think-tank in Washington, DC. She specializes in intelligence and space topics, and she has worked with the Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of Defense to improve policies, practices, and technologies. She has improved analytic and collection tradecraft; identified emerging technologies and their impact on space architectures, special operations, countering weapons of mass destruction, and intelligence; and examined new workforce models for intelligence agencies. The study: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1875-1.html I am beyond excited that this study and research are basically backing up IN WRITING so many of the things we've been saying for almost THREE HUNDRED EPISODES!! We're definitely asking Cortney Weinbaum back! Enjoy and listen up! 00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing! Thank you Skylight Frame - Get your coupon now! https://www.skylightframe.com Discount Code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off 01:45 - Introducing and welcome Cortney Weinbaum!! Ref: What is RAND anyway & why does it matter? 03:30 - I want to talk to you about the recommendations you and your team have made on this incredible research report. But first of all, what prompted this? 04:40- I love that Rand was so open and wanted you to do this, and you got no pushback or feedback or anything like that? 05:00 - Explaining to companies & governments how interviewing neurodivergent job candidates is a benefit to all, even your talent pool! 06:00 - Combatting prejudice, discrimination, and bias with the Neurodiverse Ed: [this part right here] 07:48 - “You're the first person I've ever met like me who's successful” 08:40 - “Two female civilian intelligence officers both came up to me.. from different agencies, and they said they both identify as autistic in their own workplace…We both face bias and discrimination for this. Ironically, they never met each other until that day” 09:54 - Within the US government, neurodivergent diagnosis are treated as a Disability. 11:54 - The Catch 22 paradox. 15:30 - The US national security community isn't taking a position yet they're not saying we're neurodiverse friendly or we're not. They're more, maybe neurodiverse ignorant at this point. And that ignorance is changing for sure.. one organization, one office at a time.. 17:51 - I want to touch on a few more recommendations 18:42 - This is why we say don't treat it, (or ADHD), as disability.. 20:16 - How do our spectacular subscribers find out more about you? So, yeah, if people want to post or write to me, I say that anyone who doesn't sound like a troll, I will respond to. Web: https://www.rand.org/about/people/w/weinbaum_cortney.html Socials: @cortney_dc on Twitter. @cortneywdc on Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon it says. “I'm on everything except Facebook” 20:30 - Thank you so much for making time for all of us today Cortney! 21:00 - Hey, you there! Yes YOU! We are thrilled that you are here & listening! ADHD and all forms of Neurodiversity are gifts, not curses. And by the way, if you haven't picked up The Boy with the Faster Brain yet, it is on Amazon and it is a number one bestseller in all categories. Click HERE or via https://amzn.to/3FcAKkI My link tree is here if you're looking for something specific. https://linktr.ee/petershankman 16:40 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Faster Than Normal is for YOU! We want to know what you'd like to hear! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to learn about, and from them. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! — TRANSCRIPT via Castmagic.io and then corrected.. somewhat, (first trial run is today May 17, 2023): As always, thank you Skylight for sponsoring this episode as well as many others of the Faster Than Normal Podcast. https://www.skylightframe.com Discount Code: PeterShankman for 10% off, up to $30 off. Peter Shankman [00:00:40]: Hey, everyone. Peter Shankman. Welcome to the Faster Than Normal Podcast episode number “Happy You're Here!” We're happy you're here as always! It's a gorgeous Monday. We are recording on Monday. I try to do all my podcasts in one day a week, and I do all my zooms the same day. And basically, I just know that there's going to be one day where I'm be super productive and not that productive, and you get everything done, and then that way you can spend the rest of the week doing everything. That's been my ADHD sort of lifestyle going on, like, ten years now. It really does work. Anyway, big shout out to Skylight Frame. You guys have heard me talk about them before. Skylight Frame is this awesome little frame that hangs in my kitchen right over there. And it shows my calendar, and it shows my daughter her chores and her calendar and what she has to do for school and what she has to bring everything in one place. It's touchscreen. It's Skylightframe.com. Peter Shankman. The code Peter Shankman will get you $30 off. I love it. I can upload pictures of anything. My parents can send pictures to the frame. So if they instead of that's their new way of guilting me for not bringing the kid over. They only live three blocks from me. So their new way of guilting me for not bringing the kid over is to send me photos of themselves that show up my Sky Frame, where they're holding little signs and say, forget about us. Remember us. We miss our granddaughter, things like that. It's lovely. Lovely Jewish guilt via digital. Anyway, skylightframe.com use code peter Shankman and we thank them for sponsoring this episode of Faster than Normal. And guys, I am so stoked today because we have a wonderful woman who I just met named Cortney Weinbaum on the podcast today. Get this. She is the lead author of a new Rand Corporation report on neurodiversity and national security. Okay, that is huge. And you know what the key finding is? Neurodiversity, like other forms of diversity, can strengthen a national security organization. I feel like Vindicated, like, for the first time, this stuff that I've been shouting from the rooftops about companies and neurodiversity in the workplace and neurodiverse. Cortney, sitting here right now from Bethesda, Maryland, and has verified everything that I've been screaming for ten years. I'm, like, the happiest person. A Cortney, Welcome to festival. Ed: [that's so funny- Castmagic.io thinks this is a festival.. well.. kind of it IS a festival, really.. but anyway, back to your transcript here- that has been corrected at least to this point by a human]. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much for taking the time. Cortney [00:02:43]: Oh, thank you for having me, and I love your enthusiasm! Peter Shankman [00:02:46]: Oh, my God. This came across my I don't remember who said this to me, but someone said to me that, you're going to love this. They're like, oh, my God, I am, like, so stoked about this. And we're going to talk about how you decided to do this study, but listen to this, guys. Neurodiversity, like other forms of diversity, can strengthen a national security organization within the US. Government. Neurodivergent diagnosis are treated as a disability and requiring employees to identify as disabled benefits those with severe needs, while stigmatizing employees who have spent decades overcoming the challenges of workplaces designed for neurotypical workers. Several aspects of the recruiting and hiring process can pose barriers to a neurodiverse workforce. And then, once on board, neurodiversion employees can face challenges, navigating careers and workplaces that were not designed for them in mind. So I want to talk to you about the recommendations you and your team have made on this incredible research report. But first of all, what prompted this? Cortney [00:03:38]:Wow. I want to unpack all of that in this episode with you. So what prompted this? A dear friend of mine who's the president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance got together with one of her summer interns to write an op ed two years ago now on neurodiversity and intelligence. And my background is from the intelligence community. I joined the intelligence community very soon after 911, and that's how I entered National Security. And so when she and her intern called to interview me, it was like I got hit with a ton of bricks. Why hasn't anyone written about this before? And so I said, Send me that op ed as soon as it's done. And they did, and I took it inside Rand. For those listeners who aren't familiar with Rand, we're a nonprofit, nonpartisan, federally funded research center. I'm in our Washington, DC. Office, and I took that op ed inside Rand, and I said, we need to research this. There needs to be data about this topic. And I got an immediate gap. There was no hesitation at all. And so we got some project funding, and we did this study that you're looking at now. Peter Shankman [00:04:40]: That is amazing. I love that Rand was so open and wanted you to do this, and you got no pushback or feedback or anything like that? Cortney [00:04:47]: None. Peter Shankman [00:04:48]: And we're starting to see that now. I mean, the companies that I'm dealing with and I'm working with, adobe and Morgan Stanley and Google, they're understanding not only that neurodiversity is real, not only that neurodiversity is something that needs to be addressed, but that it can benefit companies tremendously. And that's the story screaming from the rooftop. So let's talk about the key findings. First, in terms of neurodiversity, like other forms of diversity, can strengthen a national security organization. So that the hardest part there is explaining to companies that that can be a thing, right? As opposed to companies look at it. Okay, something else we have to deal with. No, this can benefit. Cortney [00:05:22]: Absolutely. One of the questions that we were asked at the beginning of the study and then again at the end of the study were, but which jobs? Just tell me which jobs I should be opening to the neurodivergent candidates. And I'll flag those jobs as the one. And I'm laughing for those who can't see my face. And what we found out, what all of your listeners probably already know, is the answer is all of the jobs. And the way we make that point is I tell people this story, which is that when we started doing this research project, our goal was to talk to program managers, hiring managers. We were not trying to ask people to self identify as having a diagnosis and tell us about their experience. We didn't want to put at risk a population that's already at risk for prejudice, discrimination, and bias. So we weren't asking anyone about a diagnosis. But people started calling me. My phone started ringing by people who would say, I heard you're doing this study. I'm an intelligence officer, or I'm a military officer, and you need to interview me. I'm autistic. And I've never told the military that before. I got diagnosed outside the military health system so that there was no military record of my diagnosis. We heard all these personal stories so very early on. It was very clear that people with all of the Diagnoses we talk about in this report already are serving in the military, are serving as civilians in the entire national security enterprise, and that they're usually doing in a way that is masking, that is hiding whatever is their neurodivergent trait in order to fit in in their office so that they're not known. They describe themselves as living in the closet, like the LBGT community used to in the military. And that masking is exhausting, and it leads to burnout, and it prevents them from really leveraging the talents and the benefits of their conditions, but it also leads to burnout, exhaustion. It's psychologically draining all of the things. And so it creates this environment where the neurotypical employees and managers think, well, there's no one neurodivergent here. And it prevents us having role models that we can see with these diagnoses so that we can realize that, yeah, we actually should be making on ramps and making entry easier because our colleagues, who we really value, already have these diagnoses. So by having that community hide, it's a disservice to everyone. And so that's one of the first findings we had in this report, that. Peter Shankman [00:07:48]: Last point about the fact that we're not being more public about it. I gave a talk last week to a bunch of hundred fifth graders in school in New Jersey, because my latest book is for kids called The Boy with the Faster Brain. And it's hard. I tear up every time I think about this. Fifth grader came to me at the end of the class, and his head was at the end of the talk. And as everyone else was leaving, his head was down. He didn't really mumbling. I'm like what? And he's like, it you're the first person I've ever met like me who's successful, and my heart, oh, my God, my heart. Cortney [00:08:27]: Oh, my gosh. Peter Shankman [00:08:28]: Right? And it's like, we need why we. Cortney [00:08:30]: Do what we do. Peter Shankman [00:08:31]: Oh, my God. We need to be telling these stories. We need to be telling these stories. And I'm so glad that you are. Cortney [00:08:40]: I have to give you one more example. We were at a conference. I mean, it was a small event, not massive, but it was a small event for neurodivergent service providers in the national security sector. So there are some please don't think there are none. And two female intelligence officers came up to me after I explained, I stood up, I said, I'm doing this project. If anyone wants to talk to me afterwards, come find me. And two female civilian intelligence officers both came up to me. They're from different agencies, and they said they both identify as autistic in their own workplaces. They're out of the closet, quote, unquote, in their workplaces as autistic. And they said, we need more of this. We need other people to be able to be out just like us. There's no one else that either of us could ever look up to. We both face bias and discrimination for this. Ironically, they never met each other until that day. They knew each other existed. I think they talked to emails, but this event was the first time they'd been in the same room, and it was really powerful. There are people who are trying to be role models, and they're doing it at cost. And we wanted to put this study out there to provide data and analysis and objective, unbiased data analysis on what is the benefits and what are those costs. Peter Shankman [00:09:54]: That's amazing. I'm so glad you did this. So let's look at this. Within the US government, neurodivergent diagnosis are treated as a disability. And so my first reaction is, no, it's not. But I understand why that would be, right. You're looking at a lot of these things are based on 50, 67 year old rules or the Ada from 82. So talk to me about what you learned from that standpoint. Cortney [00:10:18]: Yeah, this was just eye opening, so I'm not a disability researcher. So a lot of this was new ground to me. If you want to get a job in the US government and you want to self identify as being disabled, any type of disability, you get what's called a schedule, a letter, from the Department of labor. Basically, you fill out a form, the department of labor gives you a letter called a Schedule A Letter. The schedule. A letter does not state your disability. It just says Mr. Smith has a severe disability and therefore qualifies for accommodation. That's all it says. It doesn't say what your disability is. You can be blind, you can be an amputee. Well, because of that process, no matter what your disability is, you're just identified as disabled and severely disabled. When government agencies are calculating data, we ask them, how many people do you have for neurodivergent your agency? And they said, I don't know, I can only give you my disability number. So the blind employees, the deaf employees, the amputees, and the autistic employees are all lumped in one category. So that was one finding. The second finding is that Schedule A Letter says severely disabled. And all the people we talk to don't identify as severely disabled. And they take deep personal offense at the idea that they should have to describe themselves as severely disabled just to wear noise canceling headphones in a classified room. Peter Shankman [00:11:34]: Exactly. Cortney [00:11:35]: Or just to ask that the light bulb be taken out from over their desk, or that their desk be moved from the bullpen further away from the door so they don't hear the door every time it opens. These are like basic requests of a manager, but the government treats them as accommodations and if you want an accommodation, you must have a declaration of disability. Peter Shankman [00:11:53]:Right? Cortney [00:11:54]: So we provide a few metaphors in the report and we call this the accommodations dilemma because it was like this whole catch 22 paradox. Cause you either declare yourself as disabled and all of a sudden you get all these benefits along with the risk of bias and discrimination, right? You don't declare yourself as disabled, don't worry about the bias and discrimination, but now you've got to cut it. And we said if you compare this to other diagnoses, and I use vision in the report as the example, I'm sitting here wearing eyeglasses, I'm near sighted. I am not disabled by any standard. I drive a car I can see perfectly with my eyeglasses on if I want to apply for military service or for a civilian job. I'm not considered disabled simply because I'm near sighted. Now, there's a point at which a vision diagnosis does become a disability, but it's a spectrum, and we know it's a spectrum and we know that simply having a vision diagnosis is not a binary yes you're disabled, or no you're not. For the government, having a neurodiverse divergent diagnosis is a binary yes or no. Whereas we all know, those who are in this community or researchers in this community, that it is a spectrum. There are some people with ADHD, autism and other diagnoses who do self identify as severely disabled and there's plenty who don't. And the government right now doesn't give people the option. Peter Shankman [00:13:07]: What's interesting, I think another aspect of that is because it's government work, it's the premise that you can't just move your desk away from the door if you just want to. There has to be an accommodation for. Cortney [00:13:20]: It because someone else in the office is going to say, well, that's unfair. Why did they get to their desk? I want to be near the window. Peter Shankman [00:13:26]: And I think that what companies are starting to realize is that those rules don't. I interviewed someone who was a boss once and I said, what are the neurodiversion aspects of how you're dealing? He goes, there are none. He goes, you get your work done. He goes, I do not care how you do it. You're not in junior high. You don't have to ask for a bad bathroom pass. Do whatever works for you as long as you're getting stuff done. And I think back to my first and only job I ever really had working for someone else was for America Online and under Steve Case back in the 90s in Virginia, right near you, Northern Virginia, they said the same thing. We don't care when you come in, right, work from a forest, just get your stuff done. And that was so amazing. And of course it screwed me because I thought, oh wow, this must be what the workforce is like. And my second job at a national magazine was, no, the hell it ain't. That was sort of a wake up call, but now there's no question about that. It is difficult if you have to constantly label yourself as only one thing or the other. I've never looked at this as a disability from my perspective. I understand I've had to write it down at some points for surveys or qualifications or things like that. But again, I don't qualify my ADHD as a disability. And the funny thing was, I remember growing up in school, in the New York City public schools, you could qualify for something called resource room, which would give you extra time on tests and allow you lots of different accommodations. To get there, though, you had to fall below a certain level in reading and in math. And because I loved reading, I was on a 12th grade level from first grade. Because I hated math, I qualified. But because I didn't qualify for both, I didn't get anything. So yes, there's a lot that needs to be addressed in that. Talk about for a second the concept of and I want to be constantly time, but we're definitely having you back, but the aspects of recruitment and hiring process, right? So there are companies now that I'm advising that are trying to create conversation, that they are more neurodiverse aware and that they are neurodiverse friendly. And is that not the case in government yet or how is that happening? Cortney [00:15:29]: Well, for the most part, the US national security community isn't taking a position yet they're not saying we're neurodiverse friendly or we're not. They're more maybe neurodiverse ignorant at this point. And that ignorance is changing for sure. But one organization, one office at a time, we're hoping this report can blow that door open. So what we did is we actually went through real government job vacancy postings and said, how is this worded today? And how might one word it differently? And there's actually a point in the report. We take a table. We take three or four job descriptions. And we wanted to make sure that these aren't very stereotypical job descriptions. We had people come to us say, oh yeah, I could hire people who are neurodivergent and they could be the cyber analyst in the corner who never have to speak to anyone. And so we made sure that the job descriptions we chose were not just like that person you put in the back corner who doesn't actually interact with people. We chose an accountant. Yes, a cyber operations officer. We chose a contracts officer. Contracting is a huge part of the national security workforce, and we chose some of these job descriptions. And then based on what we had learned from the commercial sector, we said, here's how you might do it differently. Sometimes it's just changing the wording. Like, instead of saying, demonstrate that you're an effective communicator. I don't know how to do that in a cover letter very well. Instead, we write it in a way that for someone who has trouble with nuance, who has trouble with interpretive language, who doesn't know how to do that, we'd be able to figure out what exactly is that they need to see from me. We took one of the job descriptions that was asking for financial analysis skills as the accounting position. And we said instead of all these things that they're asking the applicant to prove in a resume, instead let's interview this person by giving them a practical exercise, which is what some companies do, we email them a spreadsheet three days before the interview. The spreadsheet is fake financial data. We say to them, in three days, you're going to present your analysis to the hiring manager or a board of three people. Well, by doing that now, this person isn't worried about making eye contact and making sure they know how to answer the question of what do you want to get out of your career? Instead, you're really assessing this person on their financial analytic skills and their ability to convey analytic findings to a customer. That's probably all you really cared about in the first place. You didn't really care if they could make eye contact and shape your hand with a firm handshake. So we provide those kinds of really specific, tangible recommendations. Peter Shankman [00:17:51]: I want to touch on a few of the more recommendations. We have a few minutes left. One of the ones that I saw immediately, and I love this, help all employees understand neurodiversity right and this goes back to what I've taught at some of the companies that I work with in the concept of curb cuts. I'm sure you know that is at the end of World War II, 600,000 US servicemen came home disabled. And every city and every town across the country put ramps at the at the corner of every block, make up the sidewalks, making curb cuts. And they wound up helping those 600,000 servicemen and also wound up helping pregnant women and people with boxes and children and people with strollers list goes on and on. So you help one group and it benefits all. So the concept of teaching, understanding university, go ahead. Yeah. Cortney [00:18:42]: This is why we say don't treat it as disability. By putting ramps in buildings, you didn't just help the people who are disabled. Like you said, you help the Janet or push the card more effectively. So if you change your interview practices or your management practices in ways that provide clear communication to everyone, everyone will benefit from that. It's not just the few employees that have a diagnosis. And by the way, there's plenty of employees who are not diagnosed because they didn't have the availability to have a diagnosis. So it helps them, too. So, yeah, we wanted to make sure that the recommendations in here were really widely applicable. We heard from plenty of people we interviewed. It's one thing to give the neurodivergent employee the feedback that they need to be a better communicator, but did you also give the rest of the team the feedback that they need to be better communicators, too? And that's what we're talking about. Why is the whole burden on one person to be able to improve team wide communication? The burden shouldn't fall on one person's shoulders 100%. Peter Shankman [00:19:41]: Courtney, I want to have you back again. I really appreciate you taking the time. I'm going to tell Meagan immediately that I want to have you back. I could talk about this for 6 hours. Maybe we'll break our rules and do like a 45 minutes version if you're up for it. But thank you so much for taking the time. And this research is available. Anyone can download it. It's at RAND.org under publication for free. Cortney [00:20:03]: It's for FREE!!!! Peter Shankman [00:20:04]: That's the coolest thing. It's like, Here, have it. I'll put a link to where it is in the show notes. But again, if people want to find you, I mean, you're pretty easy to find. Do you mind if people contact you? Do you have a social account or. Cortney [00:20:16]: How can people yeah, I'm on Mastodon, I'm on Twitter. I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn. I'm on everything except Facebook. So, yeah, people want to post to me. I say that anyone who doesn't sound like a troll, I will respond to. Peter Shankman [00:20:30]: Awesome. Cortney Weinbaum, thank you so much for taking the time. Really. Cortney [00:20:34]: Thanks for having me. Peter Shankman [00:20:35]: Phenomenal. Most definitely. We'll be live in a few weeks. Guys, thank you for listening. Really appreciate your time. I love that you are still listening to Faster Than Normal. We are closing in on 300 episodes. How amazing is that? I've never been able to do anything 300 times in a row, so I am super excited about that. And we will be back next week with another interview with someone probably not as cool as Cortney, but we're going to try. Thank you again, everyone for listening. Cortney, thank you one more time. We will talk to you guys soon. Have a great day. Stay safe. — Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!
Neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many ways. On this “NASM-CPT Podcast,” host, and NASM Master Instructor, Rick Richey is joined by featured guest, best-selling author, worldwide influencer, founder of HARO, and host of the “Faster Than Normal” podcast, Peter Shankman, for a full deep dive into exercise and neurodiversity. Shankman shares unique and personal stories of his struggles as a youth, being diagnosed with ADHD in his mid-30's, neurodiversity in the workplace, his passion for helping others, and how exercise has enabled him to get through some of life's everyday struggles. This one-of-a-kind interview is certainly one you don't want to miss! Did you hear? The most trusted name in fitness is now the most trusted name in sports performance nutrition. Become an NASM Certified Sports Nutrition Coach and optimize performance and recovery. https://bit.ly/3NRzCYU
You could pick any number of family comedies where “Mr. Masculine Man has to learn to care about humans that aren't women they want to bone” that are actually worth watching. This would not number among that list. We love topless Vin Diesel. We love Brittany Snow in just about anything. Shankman? Thomas Lennon? Talents! So what the hell happened here? - I'll be your Daddy - - Secret Invasion Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp_YZNqNBhw - Ahsoka Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnzNZ0Mdx4I - Thrawn Actor: https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/star-wars-ahsoka-thrawn-actor-lars-mikkelsen-1235576301/ - Peter Pan and Wendy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-5sVX7MRj8 - Muppet Mayhem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhP4QiK8GzA - The Marvels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuk77TjvfmE - Walk That Duck!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6jSe1CixGQ —- Research and references completed using Wikipedia, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo, and Disney.Fandom.Com. ----- People who can get pregnant have a right to safe and legal abortions, for any reason. Visit Action For All at https://choice.crd.co/ for information on donating, volunteering, and more. ----- We're bringing hexy back! Use code NONPLUSSED10 for 10% off MCU and Nonplussed merch at MischiefMerch.com! ----- Download the Knowable app and use code NONPLUSSED for 20% off your subscription and tap into the knowledge of over 200 experts at the top of their field, ad free! ----- We are (out and) proud members of the Mischief Media Network! To check out their full slate of shows, search “Mischief Media” your podcast app or visit mischiefmedia.com. ----- And if you like what you hear and want more, check out the Mischief Media Patreon at patreon.com/makingmischief! Drop us a line! Email: submissions@nonplussedpod.com Twitter/Facebook/Instagram: @nonplussedpod Hosted and edited by Clancy Canto and Josh Wittge. Produced by them, along with Patrick Ross, in conjunction with Mischief Media. Theme Music: "Quirky Dog" by Kevin MacLeod. Check out more tunes at https://incompetech.com.
In this episode Rob talks with John Shankman, Founder and CEO of Hashtag Labs who has been a supporter of the Beeler.Tech community from the very beginning. They cover everything from how ad tech is bought and sold, understanding the code on the page, and what makes selling ad tech challenging but interesting.
This week on Chefs Without Restaurants we have chef Kyle Shankman. Kyle is the chef and owner of Speak Easy Supper Club, an exclusive dining experience in the Atlanta area. As tickets for Speak Easy are hard to come by, Chef Shankman also finds a way to feed folks as a private chef and cooking class instructor.A chef for two decades, Kyle has run multiple restaurant kitchens as an executive chef and consultant, taught hundreds of cooking classes for home cooks, been the personal chef to A-List celebrities, and has been the on-camera talent in both live and produced segments for several national brands.On the show, we discuss starting the supper club in his residential home with his 15-year-old son. We talk about the inspiration for his menus, how his diners find him, and the pros and cons of running a supper club. If you'd like to hear Kyle discuss why hiring an assistant was a game-changer for his business, check out the mini-episode here.KYLE SHANKMANKyle's InstagramKyles WebsiteSpeak Easy Supper Club on InstagramKyle's FacebookCHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTSIf you enjoy the show and would like to support it financially, please check out our Sponsorship page (we get a commission when you use our links). Get the Chefs Without Restaurants NewsletterPrivate Facebook groupChefs Without Restaurants InstagramChefs Without Restaurants on TikTokChefs Without Restaurants on YouTube
This week on Chefs Without Restaurants we have chef Kyle Shankman. Kyle is the chef and owner of Speak Easy Supper Club, an exclusive dining experience in the Atlanta area. As tickets for Speak Easy are hard to come by, Chef Shankman also finds a way to feed folks as a private chef and cooking class instructor.A chef for two decades, Kyle has run multiple restaurant kitchens as an executive chef and consultant, taught hundreds of cooking classes for home cooks, been the personal chef to A-List celebrities, and has been the on-camera talent in both live and produced segments for several national brands.On the show, we discuss the best hire you can make for your personal chef business. This was part of a longer conversation we had about Kyle's Speak Easy Supper Club. I had asked Kyle what position he'd recommend hiring if he had the budget. Kyle has actually already hired an assistant, and talks about how it was a game-changer for his business. Kyle shares his experience of working with his assistant who has helped him take his private chef work to the next level. She has an understanding of the details that go into service and provides an eye for detail that takes their work to the next level. Additionally, she has excellent people skills that balance Kyle's dry humor and fills in gaps when he's busy cooking.Because I thought this would provide tremendous value, I removed it from the full episode, and have released it here as a standalone mini-episode. You can find our full conversation here.KYLE SHANKMANKyle's InstagramKyles WebsiteSpeak Easy Supper Club on InstagramKyle's FacebookCHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTSIf you enjoy the show and would like to support it financially, please check out our Sponsorship page (we get a commission when you use our links). Get the Chefs Without Restaurants NewsletterPrivate Facebook groupChefs Without Restaurants InstagramChefs Without Restaurants on TikTokChefs Without Restaurants on YouTube
Dr. Stew Shankman, a Professor and Clinical Psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at Northwestern, joins the podcast to discuss therapy and the brain. Dr. Shankman explains what happens with the brain when it's at rest and when it's doing tasks and he also shares information on the affect therapy has on the brain. They talk about the time it takes to heal the brain, the benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and how the real work is done outside the therapist's office. For more information on Dr. Stew Shankman's work visit: https://sites.northwestern.edu/nearlab/ To take a mental health screen, or to find mental health information and resources, visit mhascreening.org To submit questions, comments or ideas about future topics on the podcast, contact podcast@mhanational.org
For Video Edition, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/YaClhUwFHp0 For over 10 years, Author Ed Shankman and Illustrator Dave O'Neill have collaborated to create rhyming picture books that have found a special place in the hearts of families across the nation. Your children will lose themselves in the dazzling illustrations, the irrepressible imaginings, and the magical, mesmerizing music of words. Whether you choose the award-winning “I Met a Moose in Maine One Day”, the family favorite, “My Grandma Lives in Florida”, the heart-warming “The Sea Lion's Friend”, the giggle-inducing “Where's the Bathroom” or any other Shankman & O'Neill classic, you and your family will discover a blend of creativity, meaning, and pure fun. Dave O'Neill is an Illustrator, and during the day he's an Art Director at MAG, an NYC-based experiential marketing agency. Dave and Ed have created twelve additional books in the Shankman & O'Neill library and believe a movie studio should approach them with plans for a cinematic MOOSE-iverse. Today, Dave is a husband to a cool, talented girl and a father to a cool, talented, smaller girl. More of Dave's work can be found on his art blog, at oneilldave.blogspot.com. The Shankman and O'Neill Library can be explored at shankmanoneill.com/ Ed Shankman: An award-winning children's book author (12 titles and counting), Ed has also published his novel, "The Backstage Man" — a labor of love that he co-authored with his cousin, Robert Gordon, over the course of 35 years! Ed's entire life has been one long creative project.
We're in the middle of the "giving season", and Marcie and Dean Shankman take a closer look at how we can accept the gifts of the Great Giver - no matter if they seem good at the time or not. We've all been given great gifts in our lives, if we can recognize them! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/readmorereadwell/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/readmorereadwell/support
Join the ladies as they celebrate their co-host Sue Shankman on her recent promotion to senior Rabbi of the Washington Hebrew Congregation. She is the first woman to serve in this role!
"If you're not offering personalized experience on your website, you might as well stop.", that's often claimed by marketing gurus. We all know that. But how can we start offering those, without investing in all kinds of new tools? In this episode, Elias has a chat with Cody Shankman the CMO of NowVertical that empowers bold decision-making by advancing your automation journey. Topics we discuss: Why segmentation and personalization are important Examples of best practices Where to start as a marketer Tips on which data to use LinkedIn Cody: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codyshankman/ Website NowVertical: https://www.nowvertical.com/ ** Are you a Martech Enthusiast? Subscribe to our 2-weekly newsletter at clubmartech.com ** The Marketing Technology Podcast is brought to you by Marketing Guys, the #1 Martech agency in Europe. If you want to be on this podcast or would like to know more about Marketing Technology, visit our website at marketingguys.com or contact Elias Crum at e.crum@marketingguys.nl
Skye Rapson is an academic and coach with over seven years of experience working in adult education. Skye has studied in various fields, including Psychology, Sociology, and Public Health, and is now a Doctoral Candidate in Population Health. She was diagnosed with ADHD at the start of her doctorate. Since then, Skye has dedicated her time to researching and disseminating ADHD studies, founding Unconventional Organisation in 2020 to provide ADHD adults and managers with strengths-based, neurodiverse-friendly ADHD coaching and workshops. We're learning about how and why she began, today. Enjoy! In this episode Peter and Skye discuss: 00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing! 01:01 - Intro and welcome Skye Rapson! Ref: Interview with Sally Willbanks, founder of ND Renegade [actually based in Australia] 01:57 - So you were diagnosed at the beginning of your PhD program? 03:00 - What changed and maybe made more sense after your diagnosis? 03:39 - Ref: Interview with Rachel Cotton, another PhD student w/ ADHD 04:00 - How did your priorities shift? 04:27 - What Skye found of from her peer group at university 05:55 - Let's talk about your “Unconventional Organization” Ref: Her podcast: Unconventional Organisation with Skye Rapson and her coaching service: https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com 06:54 - What kinds of trends did you find when you started conversing with other neurodiverse folks? 07:42 - On changing the way we get things accomplished 08:40 - What would you now tell your 15-year-old self? 09:03 - How can people find more about you? Web: https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com Socials: @unconventionalorganisation on INSTA and Facebook 09:24 - Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to hear. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 09:58 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits — TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat: [00:00:37] Peter: Hey everyone, Peter. Shankman welcome. The episode of Faster Than Normal today is a PhD. We seem to be doing a lot of doctoral candidates lately. I don't know why doctoral candidates seem to get diagnosed, but maybe cuz they're smart enough to know that something's not, uh, normal, like other people. And they're like, Hey, let's figure that out. But either way we get another one here. Her name is Skye Rapson and Skye's an academic coach with over seven years of experience working at adult education, she has studied in various fields, including psychology, sociology. and public health and is now a doctoral candidate in population health in New Zealand. So we are a long way from home today. She was diagnosed with ADHD at the start of her doctorate. And since then, she's dedicated time to researching and disseminating ADHD studies, founding unconventional organization in 2020 to provide ADHD, adults and managers with strength based neurodiverse friendly ADHD, coaching and workshop. Skye, welcome. [00:01:35] Skye: Hi. Yeah. Great to be here. [00:01:37] Peter: Good to have you here. So ADHD, you know, it, it's interesting. We had, we have there's someone else from New Zealand who we've had on the podcast. Um, she runs, uh, oh God, what's the name, but neuro neuro it's line of t-shirts neuro… Oh, I'm spacing on it now. I have one of them. It's awesome. Awesome shirt. I'll remember it, but, and we'll put it in the liner notes, but yeah. Um, long way from home. So good to have you, you were diagnosed at the beginning of your PhD, uh, beginning of your doctoral research. Yeah. [00:02:04] Skye: Yeah, no, I was diagnosed. I actually thought I had, um, dyslexia. I went in, um, postmasters. Um, so I'd done my masters and. It was good, but it was tough. And, um, right at the end, I thought I should probably go and see if I, if I might have dyslexia. I know it, you know, it's something that my family have talked about potentially having. Um, and I came out, um, several weeks later with an ADHD. Uh, you know, you probably have ADHD and a couple of other things as well. [00:02:30] Peter: So you were surprised you were surprised at that. [00:02:32] Skye: Yeah, it, it made a lot of sense. I mean, you wrote out, read out all the different things I'd studied, you know, tell me you have ADHD without telling me you have ADHD. I kept getting to the end of a degree and being like, well, you know, this might not be for me. I think I need to switch to a totally different area and learn a totally different subject. Um, and so, um, you know, in hindsight it made a lot of sense and I learned about ADHD, but I hadn't put the pieces together in, in. Fit my life. [00:02:58] Peter: Amazing. What, tell me about what it was sort of like sort of the wake up call once you were diagnosed, what sort of started to make sense? [00:03:05] Skye: Yeah. So in terms of what made sense, I, I really focused on understanding why I was burning out because what I was experiencing was a period, you know, up until that point, I'd done a year generally at a time, you know? And so I would, I would study something really intensely for a year, work on it, stay up all night, you know, do weekends. And then I would burn out and I would need a break. And then I would be like, well, I guess maybe this isn't the subject for me and I'd come back and I would do something else. And that was very much how my ADHD was, was manifesting. [00:03:39] Peter: Now I believe that we had a, another PhD on the podcast named Rachel Cotton. She was one of our first interviews and she always talked about how, uh, she thought it was perfectly normal to live on, you know, uh, 14 caffeine tablets away. Yeah. , you know, um, But no I get that. So, so talk about, um, after you got diagnosed and, and things sort of changing, what, how did your priority shift? [00:04:01] Skye: Yeah, so, so one of the first things I actually did was I, um, I created a community in my university of other people who were postgraduate, um, who were also neuro diverse. I had worked in adult education for a really long time. Um, I'd done a lot of tutoring in universities and I'd sort of told myself when I started the PhD, I'm not gonna do that. Cuz you know, I, I tended to take on too many classes and it was distracting from actually doing the writing. Um, and then when I found out I had ADHD, I was like, oh, but like, you know, one group won't hurt. And so I started I started a group and um, and started connecting with people and learning as much as possible, not just from the research, which. You know, later on writing about, but the very first thing I started to do was to talk to other people. Who'd had those same experiences. [00:04:48] Peter: And what did you find out? [00:04:49] Skye: I found out that people were kind of frustrated with the university system, um, in terms of, you know, how it fit and how it worked with how they worked. And I think that was really, um, really helpful for me because it meant I didn't spend too long sitting in that space of feeling like it was just me, which so many people with ADHD, I know had that feeling because I immediately was launched into the space of, oh, we're all experiencing these struggles. [00:05:15] Peter: And it was sort of one of those lessons. I remember sort of the same thing when I finally got diagnosed, everything started to make sense. Part of me was pissed off because, you know, I, I, I I'd spent so much energy. Mm-hmm over the course of my life fighting things that, that, you know, swimming upstream when I didn't really have mm-hmm I'd just gone with the flow. It would've been that much easier. [00:05:31] Skye: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's definitely, it's definitely, um, a tough thing. And, you know, there was a little bit. Sadness as well. I think to look back on my more was at that point, my twenties, um, and realize that, yeah, it had just been a different, if I'd known a slightly different way of working, it wasn't that it had to be hugely different, but just some adjustments, it could have been so much easier. [00:05:55] Peter: So let's talk about, uh, unconventional organization. Tell me about it. [00:05:58] Skye: Yeah. So, um, I started on unconventional organization in 2020, um, after I'd, you know, worked with the universities, I started working with schools and then when, uh, COVID hit and we all had to go back to our homes. I was looking for an opportunity to keep doing what I really loved to do, which is connect with people and work with people. Um, and I found ADHD coaching. And so I started doing that alongside at that point, um, writing articles. Cause I really wanted to learn more if I was gonna do this kind of space properly, I wanted to learn about the research. And so I, um, started writing articles and challenging myself to put them up every week as a way of, of, you know, keeping myself accountable for that. And, um, those two things sort of ballooned into, into what we have now with, um, you know, people who are training to become coaches with us, um, who also have ADHD. And then also having that, um, that research space as well. [00:06:51] Peter: And what did you, so tell me what, one of the interesting things I always, I always ask, what did you find when you started conversing with other people and being like, Hey, we share the same brain. Right? What kind of trends did you, did you find? [00:07:02] Skye: I found that people were working a lot harder than people realize people with ADHD. I, I found that a lot of the people that I spoke to would come to me and they'd say, I'm not getting enough done. I need to, you know, and even the people that, you know, the coaches would often come to us as well. And, you know, say I haven't been, I haven't been achieving at the level that I want to, and then I'd ask them what they're doing, because that's part of coaching. We get very specific about what your day looks like and people were spending a lot of time trying to work. And, and in that way they were expending a lot of energy. It just wasn't necessarily, um, giving them the outcome that they were looking for. [00:07:40] Peter: Right. And one of the things you learn is that, is that it's sort of a self limiting, uh, prophecy, because you wind up expending all this energy. You're not getting the results. So you try harder and it's still the same thing. Right. So you, so you, you're going down this rabbit hole and you can't win. [00:07:53] Skye: Yeah, no, exactly. And then, and then the worst part, you know, at least for us was that people would say, oh, well then I don't deserve to have a break. I don't deserve to have fun. And so we'd end up in this sort of self-fulfilling cycle of just, you know, not getting the dopamine, working hard, feeling like you don't deserve to get a break. So you definitely don't get the Domine and you're continuing to keep trying. [00:08:13] Peter: Right. And so I guess one of the best lessons there is change the way you try. [00:08:18] Skye: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And, and it's about, you know, we think about it in terms of experimentation. We often say, you know, if something doesn't work or it doesn't work for you, we just keep, we just keep adapting it. We just, we just check it out and go. That's interesting, that doesn't work. And then, you know, in, in the case of working with the coach, you come back and you say, Hey, that doesn't work for me. And they go, that's fine. Like we can adjust it. [00:08:41] Peter: Right. What would you have told your 15 year old self, if you knew, if you knew that and what you know now? [00:08:46] Skye: That's a really good question. I think I would tell my 15 year old self. It's not about finding the perfect career. It's about finding the perfect environment. [00:08:56] Peter: Oh good. Oh, I like that a lot. That's a great quote, great quote. Oh, I like, yeah. I really, really love that. Yeah. Um, Skye, how can people find more about you? How can they get, [00:09:05] Skye: yeah, you can find us, um, at, [Web: https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com Socials: @unconventionalorganisation on INSTA and Facebook ] um, unconventionalorganization.com, uh, with a Z or with an S depending on which country you're from. Um, we also have, um, a lot of articles about different strategies you can use on the website as well as. And then ADHD coaching as well. [00:09:22] Peter: Awesome. Well, I love this sky. Thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it all the way from New Zealand. What time is it over there? [00:09:27] Skye: Um, it is 5:40 AM . [00:09:30] Peter: Okay. So either time to get up, or time to go to bed; I'm gonna assume time to get up. [00:09:32] Skye: Time to get up! [00:09:34] Peter: Skye, thanks for taking the time guys. Thanks for listening. You know, the drill, uh, fasternormal.com. Leave a, uh, review anywhere you like iTune, stitcher or Google play, whatever I'm at Peter Shankman, we're faster, normal on Twitter, faster than normal on Instagram, everywhere. And we'll be back next week with another interview of someone just as awesome because of that is what we do. We will see you soon. Thanks for listening Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!
Gökçen Şahin, M.Sc., who successfully completed her master's degree in Genetics, has just registered for the PhD program to start her education this fall. Technological advances in the field of genetics in the last 20 years have brought with it a large pile of data waiting to be made sense of. Gökçen will do her PhD in bioinformatics in order to learn how to draw meaningful conclusions from these data and to find solutions for this purpose. Gökçen, who loves to learn new things and is curious, developed a machine learning model in her thesis that can predict the muscle heteroplasmy ratio of patients with given demographic features, family history, and clinical table caused by a mitochondrial DNA point mutation causing mitochondrial diseases. She made these by learning everything herself. She reviewed more than 450 publications fastidiously and worked with doctors to generate her data. Gokcen, who wants to improve herself in this field, wants to have a solid foundation. Therefore, she decided to take her education in this field. Gökçen actually qualified to enter another PhD program last year for the same purpose and started her education. During this period, she was diagnosed with ADHD in December and in January, she learned that she is autistic. While the diagnoses were a great shock at first, she shared her diagnoses with her supervisor in order to pass this period in a healthy way. Afterwards, she was exposed to various mobbing by this supervisor. The severity of mobbing had increased over time. And in February, she was fired by him from the PhD program in an e-mail. Not long after, her ex-boyfriend's family, who learned that she is autistic and ADHDer, did not want them to get married, and they broke up after a 2-year relationship, which was a first for Gökçen. She had many reasons to lose hope. But the opposite happened. The diagnoses resulted in her accepting herself. She faced many challenges throughout her life and she saw that the challenges she experienced was the result of not being accepted as she was. Realizing this, she wanted to go on further and apply for a new program, but she also had fears. She explained everything to her new supervisor before application. And she was encouraged by new supervisor to apply for the program. Now she's telling people that “Being autistic and ADHD is part of the diversity in nature and being able to live as ourselves, to be free of masks is what we have a right to do. The only thing that can hinder this view is when we begin to look at ourselves as people who do not accept us as we are. When we come back from this mistake, we start living a healthy life. Because not being able to be what we are, not being accepted is ignoring us and it hurts. Nobody has the right to this. We are a part of nature, just like everything else." This is a great one- enjoy! In this episode Peter and Gökçen discuss: 00:40 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing! 00:50 - Apologies for the near horrid audio- Peter is still in a hotel. 00:56 - Intro and welcome Gökçen Şahin! 02:45 - Your story is incredible; and it's frustrating professors would still be so ignorant! 03:21 - So you said that you wrote something out that you wanted to share with us, feel free! 03:35 - On being accepted for PhD programs 04:03 - On the first meeting with her supervisor/professor 04:51 - On the 2nd meeting with her supervisor 05:50 - What happened next? 08:16 - A little while later… 08:45 - Studying about ADHD 10:00 - On being diagnosed by a child psychologist and then given meds 10:19 - Her professor's reaction 11:05 - Back to the psychologist 11:51 - On being made a study and the discovery of Autism 13:00 - Amazing. A couple of questions… 13:15 - The fallout and heartbreak 14:00 - Did you go back to your former professor? 15:05 - What types of things that you used to think were negatives, do you now understand to be positives? 15:56 - Fun fact: Your subconscious mind controls about 80percent of what you think; be mindful in your self-talk/inner dialogue. 16:24 - On being happy inside and being kind to yourself! 17:44 - What advice would you give to someone who has been told that they are broken? 17:55 - THIS PART. RIGHT HERE. 19:56 - What happened with her new supervisor? 21:30 - How can people find more about you? @GKCNSHN on Twitter 21:30 - Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to hear. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 21:40 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits — TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat: [00:00:40] Hey guys, Peter, Shankman welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal. Unfortunately, again, I'm still recording from a hotel. Uh, we should be back in my apartment within a week or so, but oh my God, has it been not fun? Anyway, I do wanna talk about something fun today. I have an amazing story here I was on Twitter and someone tagged me in a post and said, you've gotta read what's going on here. And I was introduced to a one whose name. Uh I'm I'm despite my best efforts, I'm probably gonna screw up and I wanna say it's Gokcen shine and I'm pretty, I'm sure I'm relatively close there, but lemme tell you something about Gokcen was in a. PhD program. And, uh, she was doing her PhD in bioinformatics in order to learn how to draw meaningful conclusions from data and find solutions. She was, she loved new things; she's very curious. She discovered a machine learning model and her thesis that could predict the muscle hetero PLAs ratio of patients with given demographic features basically stuff way beyond my pay grade. Right. She's dealing with Mitocondrial DNA, uh, point mutation. I mean, incredible stuff. So what happens. She gets into another PhD program and gets diagnosed with ADHD in January. She learns that she has ADHD and learns that she's autistic. And while this diagnosis works a great shock to her, she shared a diagnosis with a supervisor, and guess what happened with her supervisor? Her supervisor fired her from her PhD program via email! Okay. That's like breaking up with someone over a text message, not cool! Okay. And then after that, her ex-boyfriend's family or her boyfriend at the time who learned that she was a autistic and ADHD, did not want them to get married and they broke up a over a 2 year relationship. Unbelievable. But despite having many reasons to lose hope the opposite happened and the diagnosis resulted in G accepting herself and saw these challenges for what they were through her life, realizing that she applied for a new program. Got in. And now she tells everyone that being autistic and ADHD is part of the diversity in nature. And being able to live as ourselves to be free of masks is what we have a right to do. I am so excited to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here today Gokcen. [00:02:41] Gokcen: Uh, thank you so much for inviting me, Peter, [00:02:44] Peter: uh, an amazing, an amazing story. I, I, I, I, I remember reading it on Twitter and just being blown away that, that, that, you know, of, of all things, professors could still be that, uh, closed mind truly, truly just incredible. [00:02:58] Gokcen: Actually leaving it was very hard, but eventually I just, uh, get something at you get new thing at you then .Right now I'm totally okay. [00:03:10] Peter: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like, it sounds like you took this, you know, as, as, as difficult as it was, you saw this as an opportunity and, and, you know, used it to your, to your advantage. [00:03:20] Gokcen: Sure, sure. [00:03:21] Peter: So, so you said that you wrote something out that you wanted to share with us, feel free. [00:03:25] Gokcen: Yes. Okay. Uh, you can just, uh, cut me if I exceed the time. [00:03:29] Peter: really not a problem. Go ahead. Okay, go ahead. [00:03:32] Gokcen: Uh, just let me mention about myself a bit. I completed my master on genetics in 2021. I am accepted to PhD program and I will, uh, start my education in the field of bioformatics and system biology in this semester. I was actually accepted to PhD program last year, too. Uh, three acceptance. Actually, I got three acceptance last year from three different universities. In the one that I choose I was fired after six months by my supervisor. Uh, I met with him on 6th of July, 2021. In the meeting I mentioned about my background, about my thesis, about my current knowledge in this field and I, um, What I want to do, et cetera. And he spoke very positively about my answers. Uh, and he said, a few people at your level can answer these questions so well, you know why you did what you did. Um, so I said to him that I didn't get any education on this topic. I. In my thesis, uh, I just did something learning on internet, et cetera, but I didn't get any, um, base education on this topic so I need someone to guide me. I'm looking for, um, my master and he said, okay. In the second meeting, uh, he wanted me to prepare a project, uh, based on my performance. I will get a chance to apply. I finished my project and email, but he was kind of person that don't answer emails. Meanwhile, I was accepted by two other universities. I dunno why, but I see him as someone that I can trust, but I was totally wrong. Anyway, uh, I sent so many emails to myself, to him. Eventually he wrote something like this. Uh, you are a person who tries to do a given test properly. Is determined by technically needs to move forward. However, I think it will not cause any problems with study. So then I, I applied, accepted government accepted me, a university accepted me in the interview. Supervisor accepted me. So, um, let's start . Our courses was removed. Uh, however, I went to Institute for a journal club and was going meet with my friends, uh, my team friends. Uh, we were supposed to meet with each other. I expected that they will introduce themselves. Ask my name, myth[?] With me, ask about my background, et cetera. Just some friendly talking, but it didn't happen. They were really cold people. After journal club I went our teams room supervisor came too. Uh, he started to talk with his students. They got along very well in a kind of manner that I don't have any idea. Supervisor, um, open potato chips package. He offered to everyone in the room. I politely said that I didn't want, um, he asked why; I said that I have a high intolerance to lactose and I cannot eat packaged foods. Then very interestingly, he got very closer to my ear, very closer and started to eat potato chips there. It was not nice at all, but I thought that probably this was how they make jokes. Um, because I can't understand jokes most of the time. And I. even can't understand why they are made. Um, while he was eating chips. I, he wanted me to ask a question to him. I asked, uh, why he put advanced statistics in the first term while introductory statistics in the second term, he started to laugh again and with his students and said, oh, did I really do this? Oh my God. And last lovely. Um, In the period of this course choice he didn't say anything to me. Um, so these two courses actually was his own courses, but he didn't warn me. He accepted my course choices and not surprisingly, I couldn't succeed because I was almost your own statistics. And this course what was advanced, I said to him, I wish you would inform me at the beginning, but I will, uh, I said that I will fail in this course and take first of all the introductory course and take this course again later. He said, OK. Uh, one day he called me to his room, uh, take a white paper in front of him, asked me, do you know this topic. I said, no, he wrote the paper. Do you know, this topic. I said, no; he wrote the paper. Uh, he wrote so many topics that I didn't know about. And he said, okay, go and study them. You should be ready because you are here to do my job. I will do my job. Uh, you will do my job, then I will be able to look something else. Um, I didn't like this attitude at all. I didn't study, I couldn't study what he gave me because this is not the way that I can study. Uh, But eventually he started to get angry with me. Uh, these times I was wondering so much about ADHD, uh, because my psychologist thought that I have. She was, um, nervous because uh, she also got a diagnosis for a while ago and she told me about the common traits that we share. And then I started to study so deeply on ADHD in a kind of manner that hyperfocus . I was collecting my traits to tell all of them to my psychiatrist. Uh, the hospital that I'm going is a medical hospital of Istanbul for, of medicine of Istanbul university. So doctors are working there with rotation, for education. Each doctor see patients for just one month. Uh, when I went to hospital for ADHD evauation , this was maybe the only chance that I have got in my whole life because doctor was a child psychiatrist She evaluated me. It was the 24th of December 2021 I diagnosed with ADHD . Gave me a drug after this session. She said she wanted to see again, very soon. I thought that she will probably ask me whether the drugs work or not. I told, um, my diagnosis to my supervisor, I was waiting some understanding, but instead he said that, um, a man without hands cannot be a Shoemaker and no matter how much he wants. But if he works hard, he can become a marathon runner. Maybe he [you] should try another sector. I. Trying to explain that ADHD is not a kind of attention deficit, actually. It's a problem of regularizing of pay attention wherever we can focus, whatever we do more than neurotypicals. But he didn't seem to understand at all. And maybe didn't listen at all. Um, it was 12th of January. I went to a hospital again, I told my psychiatrist that, um, about this, uh, supervisor's unpleasant behavior. And she told me to relax because she said no one had right to kick me out of the schools. I informed her about the effect of drug. Then she asked me tons of questions I didn't understand because these questions was not related with medicine or ADHD. After this session she just said that she wanted to invite me to their department community meeting with the justification of I was their patient for long and she wanted, uh, her professor also evaluate me. Then I said, okay, but this wasn't seem normal to me after going home. I checked each, each question and still didn't understand and what is them about? I Google check [unintelligible] five, watch videos, one thing, but I got shocked. Me? Autism? Is that possible? Then the face to face community meeting the professor who is the head of the psychiatric department of the hospital, and almost all psychs of the hospital was there approximately 20, 30 doctors. And this time professor asked me so many questions and all of them evaluated. I shared my bad language too, because I sit to someone, uh, after the meeting, my own psych took me her room and explained that I'm autistic. Uh, it was 26th of January this year. Uh, so, and my age is 29. It's surprising. [00:12:55] Peter: So, uh, it it's, let me, let me interrupt just, just for a minute, because I, I, I am, I am grateful to you for telling your story. I have, I have a couple of questions that I, I think my audience would wanna know are on the answer to as well. What, what did you, when you were told by your professor that a Shoemaker cannot make shoes, if he doesn't have hands, how did that make you feel? [00:13:15] Gokcen: Terrible because you feel like you don't have an ability to think, have an ability, don't have an ability to do something. Uh, you don't have a brain. You cannot think, you cannot be a scientist. Uh, these are, these are incredibly bad things. And, uh, you know what happens in after he said all this to me, I started to cry very deeply and he just look at me with a cold face and it was really horrible. [00:13:54] Peter: When you let's fast forward to when you were accepted into your new program? Um, I'm I was curious, you didn't mention this. Did you at all, at any point, go back to this professor and tell him that you were, that you made into this new program? [00:14:08] Gokcen: Uh, no, I didn't. I didn't. [00:14:11] Peter: Do you have any desire to do that? [00:14:14] Gokcen: Uh, actually, I have a really big desire to tell him, um, in a, in maybe I know government education department or something. I really don't want to see him again anymore. [00:14:30] Peter: Right. I understand that. It just seems to me that, that I think there's, you know, for what he's done and had the way he did it, uh, there should be some consequences for him. Um, you know, that's a, obviously a bigger story, but I do think that that's something you shouldn't, shouldn't just let go. [00:14:45] Gokcen: Um, and I will tell, um, more about what he did. Actually. There is so much bad things too, and it's coming. [00:14:55] Peter: Well, let's focus. Let's focus on the positives for a second. So let's fast forward to the point where you were accepted into the new program. Yes. What have you noticed? What have you noticed about yourself since your diagnosis? What types of things that you used to think were negatives are, do you now understand to be positives and things like that? [00:15:14] Gokcen: Uh, could you repeat the question again, please? [00:15:17] Peter: Um, now that you're diagnosed, you know, for instance, I'll give you an example. My, uh, my ability to, to multitask I realize is a, is a positive, but when I was in school, uh, it was framed as not being able to pay attention. And so I thought it was a negative. Yes. Right. Once I was diagnosed with ADHD, I realized that it could be a positive. So I'm, I'm curious as to what sort of things that, that you might have thought of as bad things, um, have you since maybe sort of rethought of as possibly good things now that you understand sort of where your, how your brain works. [00:15:53] Gokcen: Um, actually, there are lots of things like that until to the diagnosis I always thought that I am weird because everybody in your environment say that you are weird. And when they say until that age, when everybody say this, eventually you also believe them. Um, but I actually, without thinking them, I was already happy in my inside. I couldn't show it to the people, but I was happy too inside because I was, um, I love, uh, in, in a way that what makes me Gokcen and everything. Every trait of autism or ADHD, give me that they are my traits and this is, these are my parts. And I love myself. Uh, but after diagnosis, I can say it loudly that I love myself. [00:16:54] Peter: I think that that in itself is an amazing story right there. The fact that you've been able to; understanding sort of how your brain works has allowed you to be kinder to yourself, right? [00:17:04] Gokcen: Sure. Because I able to make this master thesis, which is very, uh, hard actually in that time, I didn't know any knowledge about machine learning and I apply and even I created my own data set. Uh, examining more than, uh, 450 articles. This was a huge job. And needs a really strong attention. So this is why ADHD is my superpower and autism, my superpower. Um, yes. [00:17:44] Peter: What would you tell, what would you tell students or people who were in your position who might have been told that they were broken as well? What would you, what advice would you give to them? [00:17:55] Gokcen: Um, the thing that really saved my life is, um, just accept yourself as you are, because you are incredible, whatever other people say. Um, And be always kind. This is for everyone. Uh, as Robin Williams said, this, the quote that I love so much: Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know, nothing about. Be kind, always. Because until the time of the diagnosis, I had so many tons of psychological problems. I even stay one month in mental health hospital, like a prison. I suicide twice, uh, heavy drugs. Therapies, tons of therapies. None of them worked. Everybody thought that you are not normal. You just want, don't want to be alive. But, um, but this is not true. Because if you can discover yourself, this is a gift, not a curse. Yeah. And after diagnosing all of the psychological problems just gone away. And I just right now use just one drug and this is for, to, to make it gradually decrease. Uh, and very soon that I will give up all the medicines I will take none of them. [00:19:26] Peter: That is wonderful. What a great, what a great story. I love that, you know, when I saw your original tweet, I was sort of blown away about how anyone could be that sort of close-minded, um, especially in education where you're supposed to have an open mind, you're supposed to, uh, embrace that. But, um, it seems to me Gokcen that you've definitely come out on top of this, that you have, you have come out the winner in this story, and I hope that you keep writing and I hope that you keep tweeting and keep sharing your story with the world because you're an inspiration. [00:19:54] Gokcen: Thank you so much. Uh, what happened lastly, I wanna share with you. I told my new supervisor about a bit about my situation, and she said; uh, you have had a bad experience, but, uh, don't be discouraged. I'm sure that, uh, you will be much more happier in here. Uh, there are bad peoples in the world, but fortunately they're good ones too. I am grateful to her. Uh, but when I said that I'm grateful she to accepted me, she said that I didn't do anything. You deserve it. We evaluated you as we did to all students. And you deserve it. This is so precious because people pity you uh, about your autism about your ADHD, and this is especially so in my country. But my dear supervisor treated me like she tries to everyone and she didn't show sympathy because I'm autistic. She said I was accepted because I deserved; this is so precious. [00:21:00] Peter: I love that. I love that. What a wonderful story. Gokcen, Thank you so much for taking the time. My pleasure. Give us your, give us your Twitter account so people can follow you. [00:21:09] Gokcen: Uh, sure. Um, my, my, uh, name with, uh, letters, uh, G K C N S H N. This is my Twitter. Thank you so much. [00:21:21] Peter: This. Awesome. Thank, thank you so much for taking the time. We're definitely gonna have you back in several months to talk about, to give us an update on what's going on. [00:21:28] Gokcen: Thank you so much. You can. [00:21:30] Peter: All right guys, as always, thanks for listening to fast than normal. We will see you next week with a brand new episode. Hopefully I'll be back in my office and not in our hotel room and we will talk to you soon. Stay safe, stay well. Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!
Peter Shankman is an author and popular keynote speaker in marketing, brand building, social media, and customer service. In this episode, Peter Shankman and I discuss the metaverse and its implications for edtech, eLearning, and upskilling and neurodiverse education. More Peter Shankman is an author, popular keynote speaker, and authority on marketing, brand building, social media, and customer service. He is also a futurist and expert in the latest trends in digital marketing and technology. In this episode, Peter Shankman and I discuss the metaverse and its implications for edtech, eLearning, upskilling and neurodiverse education. A little about Peter The New York Times has called Peter Shankman “a rock star who knows everything about social media and then some.” He is a 5X best-selling author, entrepreneur, and corporate in-person and virtual keynote speaker. Among his many ventures, Peter Shankman founded HARO (Help a Reporter Out), an online service for journalists to obtain feedback from the public and connect with experts on issues relevant to their reporting. Shankman founded HARO originally as a Facebook group in 2008 and it was later turned into a mailing list claiming over 800,000 sources and 55,000 journalists and bloggers. Within three years, HARO was already generating $1.55 million selling simple text ads on email blasts. In June 2010, Shankman made a successful exit, selling HARO to a large advertiser. Today, the company is part of Cision. With three startup launches and exits under his belt, Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about the customer experience, social media, PR, marketing, and advertising. He is also a sought-after expert and commentator on ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and the new Neurodiverse Economy. An ADHD entrepreneur himself (like me!), he is the host of a popular ADHD podcast called “Faster than Normal.” Peter Shankman is currently Futurist in Residence at BluShark Digital, a marketing agency, where he tracks trends in the constantly changing digital landscape in order to devise cutting-edge solutions that help clients gain maximum visibility. Peter Shankman is a fascinating guy, known not only for his out-of-the-box thinking but also for his incredible, unconventional habits and hobbies. If he's not getting up at 3:30 am for a run followed by a cold shower or jumping out of an airplane, he's often traveling the word and consulting. He also has a Mastermind. It was a lot of fun talking to Peter and you can learn more about him by checking out the links in the show notes. I think you're really going to enjoy this interview, but first a quick word from our sponsor. Learn more about Peter Shankman: https://www.shankman.com/about/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Shankman https://www.instagram.com/petershankman/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/petershankman/ https://www.fasterthannormal.com/
Thanks for listening in today. I'd like to welcome you to this episode of Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast. I'm Katie Strong, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Director of the Strong Story Lab at Central Michigan University and serving as today's episode host. Today I'm talking with Dr. Sameer Ashaie from the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab. Before we get into our conversation, Let me tell you a bit about our guest. Dr. Ashaie is a Research Scientist in the Think and Speak Lab at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. He earned is PhD in Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences at the Graduate Centre, CUNY. He is recipient of the 2022 Tavistock Trust for Aphasia Distinguished Scholar Award. Dr. Ashaie was also a recipient of NIDILRR's Switzer Merit Fellowship and NIDILIRR's Advanced Rehabilitation Research and Training post-doctoral fellowship. His lab the Shirley Ryan Affective and Emotion Rehabilitation Lab (SAfER) focuses on aphasia rehabilitation, particularly identifying post-stroke depression and related psychosocial disorders. He employs a variety of techniques in his research including eye-tracking and heart-rate variability. In this episode you will: Learn about the value of having researchers integrated into clinical care. Be empowered to think about depression on a continuum and why how we measure depression matters. Hear how network models can be a more useful way to examine complex disorders. KS: Sameer welcome and thank you for joining me today. I'm really excited about this conversation with you, and having our listeners get to know you and your work . SA: Thank you for having me here. You know I listen to the podcast, and I wasn't expecting to be here one day. So, it's a privilege being here. I KS: Congratulations on receiving the Tavistock Distinguished Scholar Award. Can you tell us a bit about the impact of receiving this recognition? SA: It's a big honor. You know, oftentimes as an early career researcher in the field of physiology or I guess any field me especially I'm wondering like, if I'm doing whatever I'm doing, is it making sense? Is it making a difference? Are people noticing it? So getting this award especially and people that have gotten before me and the work they're doing? It really validates what I'm trying to do as an indication of where I'm trying to take my research program and I'm hoping that it has an impact on people with aphasia, and as well as the broader research community. KS: Absolutely! I'm excited to start talking about your research. But before we get to that, I'd love to hear a little bit about how you came into the field of speech language pathology, because it wasn't a direct line. Your story is in fact quite interesting. And I think you refer to it as a winding path. Could you tell us a little bit about how you came to be working in the area of aphasia? SA: I started my PhD in theoretical linguistics, looking at generative phonology. And then I ended up taking a class with Dr. Loraine Obler. It was a class on the historical debates on language localization. And that really got me interested in language. After two years in theoretical linguistics, I switched tracks to neuro linguistics, communication science disorders. Because I really got interested in just language, more than just a theoretical perspective that I had as a linguist. And then, of course, there are two people that really had an impact on my career and continue to have an impact on my career. One is that I did my PhD with Dr. Jamie Reilley at Temple. And that's how I got interested into sort of the semantic aspects of aphasia. And he was really supportive and was really great in how we think about science and how we do science. And then I would say that the person who's had the most impact and continues to have the most impact, and really has made me think about this field is Dr. Leora Cherney. And I'm really indebted to her in terms of how I think about this field, how I think about our participants, how I think about how aphasia impacts their life in totality. And just seeing that kind of dedication and thinking about research that is support to impact people's life. And getting that inspiration from Leora. She has been really critical for me to really falling in love with this field, because you're keeping your participants at the center of the work you do. I mean, you might not see the impact, but you're trying to keep them that that is what your aim is. And I guess that's how I kind of came to this field, you know, some from sort of theoretical linguistics and interested in semantics and then getting a postdoc with Leora. And being inspired by her and the support she's given me to explore things. And carry a different line of research, but always keeping the participants in mind. KS: So, you're a research scientist who works in a rehabilitation hospital. I'm not sure if our listeners know exactly what you do all day long. Would you walk us through a ‘typical day' – if there is such a thing? What do you do in your lab? Would you talk us through that a bit? SA: Yeah, I, myself did not know what a research scientist is what I was doing! It was all new to me as well. It's different than a traditional academic position, and especially in a place like, Shirley Ryan AbiityLab, which is a rehab hospital. Especially the model in our rehab hospital is that researchers are integrated into the clinical care. So, what I mean by that is that our labs are situated right where therapies are happening. So even though we're not involved in therapy that's happening with the patients getting the care at that time, we can see different types of therapies. That might be OT (occupational therapists) giving therapy, or speech-language pathologists, physical therapists. So that's that integration. You really get to see patients. You get to see sort of different issues that you might not think about, because we're so discipline focused, right? So, it opens up your mind to all sorts of possibilities, collaborations, issues you might not think about. For example, physical factors are really important for people, but seeing that live and that being worked on, it has a different impact on you. The second thing is that, as a research scientist, you're not teaching classes. Your primary work is centered around research, which, which has its perks, but also that you miss sometimes that interaction, you might have had students in a traditional setting. Not that we don't get students (at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab), we do. But the primary focus is really getting the research program started. And there are no things like semesters, you have the whole year. We work on the hospital schedule. And as an early career (professional), a lot of what you do is dependent on how you get funded and that's how you established your lab. So we so for example, as an early career person, you might not necessarily have a lot of students working for you because we're not in a Communication Sciences Disorders department. So that's sort of different. But the main thing is that it's an academic environment, but it's not a university. KS: Yeah yeah you're right there in the thick of all of that rehab work. That's fabulous. I had the honor of doing a tour at Shirley Ryan at one of the Aphasia Days before COVID hit and it's just such a beautiful facility. It's just stunning. I love hearing about your path and a little bit about your work life and I've been interested in your research for a while now. I'm so excited to have this conversation. Your work in in mood and depression is something that really is an important area and I was hoping as we get started in this conversation if you could frame for us why this is such an important topic that extends to research and clinical work. SA: This is such an important question. And when I started my post-doc in the field of aphasiology, I was not interested in depression or mood. I was really interested in semantics. But, you know, talking to the patients being embedded in a clinical environment and talking to family members, everybody talked about the importance of mood, and depression. And what I realized is that everybody's talking about its importance. Everybody gives it a nod. But we're not all assessing it in a systematic manner. But we all recognize its importance, and people need this support. So, I started digging in and seeing in the literature what's going on. I came across this meta-analysis that was published in 2017, I think by Mitchell et al., and they looked at I think around 108 studies of stroke and only five studies with people with aphasia have looked at depression. I was like, that does not sound good. And then, studies that are in the field of aphasiology that look at depression used measures hadn't been validated in our field. So, I was like, we all recognize that this is an important problem and people need the support, but before we can go anywhere, that we need to figure out a way, how we can identify depression in people with aphasia, systematically. And of course, the big challenge I started thinking about that time is “how do you ask people that have language deficits about their inner feelings? Without sort of prompting them?” You know, we all use scales, those of us who do assess depression, we might modify them. But sometimes those questions are tricky to understand. And if you're modifying them, you might lead a person on to an answer. That's one thing. We can rely on caregiver reports for depression, and they're good. But we also know that those reports can underestimate and overestimate depression. And they're highly impacted by caregivers' mood itself. That was another thing. So, I wondered what can we do that assesses this systematically? And we can also include people with severe aphasia, who we often just exclude from these studies and who might have some of these most issues when it comes to mood or depression. There's some work in neurotypicals, that use a variety of techniques. For example, eye tracking. Research has shown that people who are depressed, tend to look longer at sad faces, or stimuli that denote sad valence. And their response is blunted away from positive stimuli. For example, if people are depressed they might look longer at a sad face and they might also look away from a happy face. There is also work looking at heart rate variability as well which uses certain metrics that you could derive from variability in between your heartbeats might tell us something about depression. This is also true with the dilation of our pupils, or EEG. And of course, none of these measures are perfect. Like we know with anything, we're not getting perfect measurements. But I started thinking that “yes, they might not be perfect, but can I come up with an algorithm or some kind of a composite that takes all these things into account, because if they all point to the same problem, then that problem must be there.” So that's one of the things I'm trying to do right now is combine pupillometry, heart rate variability, and eye tracking to see if we can come up with some kind of a metric that can identify depression. That way, we can move away from language in the sense that we're only using minimal language in terms of directions. We might just show people a happy face, or some emotion that some stimuli that denotes emotion. The second sort of thing, which is really important is that not thinking of depression as something you either have it or you don't have it. It's on a continuum. It could fluctuate. One day, you could have some symptoms. Another day, you might not have any other symptoms. Or in the same day, it might fluctuate. So, how do we assess that? Related to that is not just relying on some scores. For example, we all just take, like, let's say we take a common scale, like the PHQ-9 (Patient Healthcare Questionnaire-9th Edition) and we might take the scores, and we sum them up and say, “hey, this person they're above a cut off”. But in that kind of approach, we're also missing what these individual symptoms are doing. The person might not endorse every single symptom in that scale. But they might endorse some symptoms. So are we just going to say, “no, they didn't meet a cut off, but they had three symptoms that they were on the scale. For example, ‘I was sad. I was fatigued, I had a loss of appetite.” But everything else wasn't there. Are we just going to negate those symptoms? So how do we take these symptoms into account as well, when we are thinking about depression. Within the broader field of psychopathology, there's a lot of movement thinking about individual symptoms as well. So, I'm just basically taking that and applying it to our field. It's nothing new that I'm coming up with, rather is just really seeing what people in the field of psychopathology are doing, confronting all these problems. And thinking about how this can applied to our field, because they might really have a direct impact on something we're doing when it comes to treatment, right? For example, if we start thinking about individual symptoms and that day a person is fatigued. Well that might directly impacted how they respond to treatment rather than just as a sum score. So that's another angle I'm taking when it comes to this work and depression. KS: That is so important. We all know what matters, but can you help us to know like, how big of an issue is mood depression in aphasia, you know, incidence prevalence or what, you know, do we know anything about that? SA: We do. And if you look at the literature, once again, they're so varied. Some papers might report 70%, some papers might report 30%. But I would say at least, it ranges anywhere from 30 to 70%. But I think a lot of that is also dependent on how we're assessing it. Going back to the scales that we are using and how reliable those scales are. There was a systematic review early on that indicated most of these skills might not even be valid. Are we use a caregiver reports? Are we supplementing that with something? In the general stroke population, we know at least 1/3 of stroke patients have depression. And with aphasia, it's between that 1/3 to 70%. It is most likely much more than that. But I think, to really get at it, we really have to start thinking about the tools we're using. But we know it's an issue because clinicians report it, patients report it, caregivers report it, whatever literature we have, which is not much, those studies report it. In our own study, we looked depression that might not meet the threshold for major depression. And we had around 20%, and those that meet (criteria) for minor depression, those were like, 18% or so. So, it's in that 30-40% range. It's a big issue. But I think the bigger issue is that we are really missing how many people have it? How many people have the different symptoms? And what we also have is an incidence rate, a snapshot of the incidence rate, right? Like, you know, at six months, at one year, but we really need to start thinking about daily and how sort of depression changes over time. It will not be sort of weekly or yearly, we don't have that much longitudinal work, either. When I talk about daily, I talk about real world as well. I don't know if that answers your question… KS: It does. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I love that, that it's we have some ranges, they are not probably as accurate as they could be, because we don't have the right tools to assess it, and that they're just a snapshot that we're not really looking at this over time or, as you said that day, that daily basis. SA: One thing that I want to point out is that, and even with the lack of tools it's good that we are still assessing for depression. I don't want to make it seem like that there's nothing out there. But I think like for all of us, even the tools we're coming up with, we should always be thinking in our own, how can we improve upon whatever we have. And we all get attached to the methods we use. But I think at the back of our head, we should always be like, “can we improve these methods? Can we do something better?” Because ultimately, it's not about us. It's about people, our patients, our participants, family members that we're trying to do these things for. So it's really great that tools do exist, but we have to be candid, that we might not be getting everything out of them. They're a great steppingstone, but we have to constantly go back and build and just keep on taking new developments in the field of psychopathology in the field of measurement science and applied to them so that our field is moving along as well. KS: It's kind of the essence of evidence-based practice, right? We're using the best tools that we have at the moment, but that certainly we need to be on the lookout for what's coming in the newer literature or tools. Sameer, you have some really cool projects going on related to depression and mood. You talked a little bit about them earlier, but could you give us a little more detail on what you've got going on? SA: So, one thing I could kind of hone in on that I mentioned earlier is on eye tracking. Right now we're trying to come up with some kind of an algorithm where we are relying minimally on language. So just the directions are language based. We're getting people in, and we're doing a combination of eye tracking changes in the pupil dilation and heart rate variability, as people are looking at different stimuli that denote different emotions. We have a paper out that looks at the feasibility of it. And what we're basically looking at trying to quantify that using some existing scales and caregiver reports. Can we then take these metrics and see whether people are looking at sad or happy faces, or any other stimuli that denote emotions, and is that related to these traditional scales. And then how can we then come up with a metric based on these three measures, pupillometry, heart rate, and some of the eye tracking indices that can point out depression in people with aphasia? We're using these tools, but the approach is out there. Anytime people are validating new tools, they have to rely on existing tools and go through these different iterations. So right now, we're in the first iteration trying to see what kind of metrics we can extract and what those metrics can give us that are easy to use. And one thing is that eye tracking or heart rate variability over the years, they have become really accessible, and the tools are not expensive themselves. So, with the aim that down the line, can this be used in the clinical setting? Of course, we're far away from that. But that's the end goal, we hope as a quick diagnostic check. KS: Okay, yeah, that's what I was going to ask you, because we've got a lot of listeners who are clinicians. And, you know, sometimes as clinicians, it's difficult to see the relevance of things like eye tracking and heart monitoring, when you're reading literature, when you're trying to figure out, “How can I help this person right in front of me?” So, I was hoping you could explain a little bit why those tools to track variables are so important. SA: I think this is a great question. And I think the big thing is that sometimes we just need to demystify these tools. I liked the way you framed it. We really have to think of them as tools. They're tools that were trying to use to assess a problem that might be difficult with the traditional language measure. That's really it. It's not they are better than behavioral measures. It's that because people aphasia have difficulties in language production and comprehension, can we use something else that relies minimally on language? That's really it. It's not some kind of fancy approach. Yes the tools themselves might sound fancy and stuff, but really the aim is it's just a tool that's addressing a certain problem. And with heartrate variability, we can already see because now it's so common, right? All our Fitbit or Apple Watches, they all have it. And even at a basic level, we're starting to think like, “Oh, this is what my activity level refers to.” So, I've started thinking about those kinds of things in a clinical setting. And the same thing with eye tracking. If these tools are sort of readily available, can we train people to use them in a quick way? Because of course, you could do fancy analyses, but you could also look at just quick measures that if the pipelines are in a place that people could just pull it out. Just like when clinicians give a battery of tests, if you ask me, I'm not a clinician, that's really complicated. You're working with a human being you have to change it on the fly. But people get trained on it all the time and can do it. It is the same thing with these tools but if we are successful in coming up with these metrics and these algorithms.. why not? Can clinicians be trained on using these tools in a clinical setting. KS: It's exciting to be thinking about that identification of depression or mood disorder. We've got lots of work to do on what to do once it's identified, but just the identification is, as you said, that first step. I was curious if you might be able to recommend something to our listeners, you know, as I said, lots of us are clinicians, about what we should know or do right now about supporting mental health and people with aphasia. SA: I think all the clinicians I've talked to everybody recognizes the problem. That's the biggest step first of all. I think then it is really being aware of systematically assessing it. To be clear, I don't want to negate the support part. That's the end goal. But if we're not assessing depression routinely, then we're missing a big chunk. I want to keep stressing that point. I think the one thing clinicians can do is to start assessing people to the best of one's capability. If you're using a scale, then being systematic with that scale. If you're giving it in one iteration, you're giving it one way, on Day One. When you give it again, try to be as close in how you previously administered it so that we we know that you are assessing that same construct. The second thing is what I've touched on earlier, is that thinking of depression as a continuum and that it fluctuates. It's not enough to just give a screening once, or to assess this person's mood, pretreatment and post treatment. But what about daily? Because if you start looking at daily variability, you might really start thinking, “Oh, no, we're all here. Like the patient he was feeling kind of down today. I don't know if you've put enough effort into it or something along those lines.” Well, low motivation and those kind of things are symptoms of depression. So I'd like to encourage clinicians to start thinking about assessing this daily. And I think then, once we start sort of assessing it routinely, and making it a part of our work and not thinking of it as separate. That's the key. Not thinking about it like language is here, depression here. Like you know, the work you do, Katie, on narratives or stories, this is all interactive. They're all impacting each other in some sort of a loop. And then lastly, once we're getting these, and we're routinely assessing people and getting them, then thinking about getting mental health support. And for that, we really have to start thinking about interdisciplinary work. And you could speak to that as well, because I know that you have those projects going on. We can do everything on our own, working with psychologists, referring people…once we can define these basic systems, and then, you know, down the line and training psychologists or psychiatrists and different techniques that they can work with people aphasia. Or clinicians who are up and coming getting some training. And that this is just part of routine care. It's not something we recognize the importance, but then we kind of put it on the back burner. KS: Yes, right the back burner. Or say, “we don't have the tools, so we don't know what to do but we recognize it's a problem, but we don't do anything about it.” I agree. Sameer, since you brought up the interdisciplinary work and you have developed some relationships in psychology. I feel like you're kind of an exemplar interdisciplinary collaboration. Could you talk about how this collaboration has influenced your work and give our listeners any tips on how to develop such a rich collaboration? SA: All of the work I'm doing in depression and thinking about this is really influenced by people in the department of psychiatry and psychology. Much of my collaboration is with Dr. Stewart Shankman, who is the Chief Psychologist at Northwestern. And being a part of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) thinking about “how do we conceptualize depression?” and things like that. I just reached out to him, because I was interested in his work. I think we have to not be scared that people might not respond if we reach out. I just emailed him, and he was nice enough to respond. And I started attending his lab meetings and presenting our work to the lab and this problem, “how do you assess depression in people that have language deficits. How do we assess their inner feelings when they can't express themselves?” Being embedded in sort of in his work group, I was really exposed to this work. I don't think I would have been exposed to the work that people in that field are doing. For example, debates about how do we think about symptoms? Or how do we integrate these tools? How do we think about different emotions? And then applying it to our field of CSD. And thinking about metrics of depression. My work has really been influenced by how people in that field are grappling and using these issues. One can't do this work in a void. If there are people who are doing this work and that's their field, it only benefits us to form collaborations with them, learn from them, and bring our unique problems to them. So that we could come up with solutions that integrate the best of our knowledge domains. In other words, that team science approach is really the approach I'm taking towards this issue of depression. I think any work we do in the field of psychosocial disorders, mood, anxiety, fatigue, or whatever, I think it's really important that we start working with people who have focused their career on this issue. KS: I so appreciate you sharing that. And even just the simple tip of putting yourself out there to send an email and introduce yourself to someone who's from a different discipline to start that relationship is important. I envision through attending his lab meetings, you're there in his world, learning about things in a way that you wouldn't be, if you weren't a part of what he's got going on. And thinking deeply about how you can apply that to your interests in aphasia. I'm so excited. Our field just needs this innovation and it's exciting to hear about the work you're doing. SA: If I just did all on my own, I would have been just looking at what's in our field, what's in stroke, looking at papers…but you're not embedded in people who are doing this daily. They might not be doing it in our population, but this is what they're doing. And they're grappling with the conceptual issues as well. Tools, measurement, scales, everything. So that's a huge benefit to us because when we think about depression and stuff, yeah, the work has been done, but when you're embedded in that setting, you could take some of the newer things and start applying it as well. Seeing how we can move rapidly. And of course, then the flipside is like, also the collaborators have to be willing to collaborate with you. Dr. Shankman, he's been great. He's been willing and he's been great at mentoring me. I think most people, if you reach out, and you explain what you're trying to do people are willing and you also can contribute to their work, that I think that you know, these relationships will form. KS: Well, that is how cutting-edge work gets done. It's exciting to hear about it. You also have some additional interesting work, particularly in network analysis. Sameer, could you tell us what network analysis is, and why it's important to life with aphasia? SA: In a nutshell, if we start talking about networks, networks are everywhere, right? Most of us are privy to the notion of social networks. That we're a bunch of friends, we're connected to each other. And a group of friends might cluster together, and then that cluster is connected to someone else. Anything, we take a look at it, if it's complex, it forms a network. Consider airports, highways, how they're interconnected. Certain things are central and more important than others. That's a network. People often give an example a flock of birds. Birds might have different characteristics. But when they form a flock, it's made up of different parts, but they're all interacting together to form that flock. That's basically what network is. And it's derived from graph theory in mathematics. But at the end of the day, it's about looking at complexity. Anything that's complex, we could think of it as networks. So the work of network analysis, it's a collaboration between me and Dr. Nichol Castro at Buffalo. Both of us are interested in this approach and we decided to tackle this together. Right now we're building a network model of aphasia. One of the reasons, we decided to think about network approach is that going back, you know, we have these these two approaches, and people do integrate them. People do give nod to them, but impairment-based approach an LPAA (Life Participation Approach to Aphasia). And it's not to say that people that focus on impairment don't care about LPAA, or people that embrace LPAA, don't care about impairment. But generally, there is some kind of distinction being made, either implicitly or explicitly. And you might give nod that one thing is more important than other. But me and Nichol, we started thinking rather than thinking, “Okay, rather than thinking about what is important (language, or depression or anxiety) what about coming up, and thinking about all of them interacting in the network. And not assigning a priori importance to either one of them but rather looking at these interactions between multiple factors, and how they might impact each other, so that we're not missing anything, because aphasia is complex. It's not just about language. It's not just about depression. It's not just about supports (social support). It is about everything. So that's where a network model becomes useful. And then from there on building these initial models, then one could start thinking about treatment. That it is possible in a network, that one thing is more important than the other. And that is taking it one step further in an individual, Individual, A versus B, something might be more important in Individual A, like depression, and in Individual B it's communication confidence. We could start by building a big model first. And of course, all these things have steps and eventually come to that and thinking about how can we identify critical, important factors for a person that we could intervene on? But before we could do that, we wanted to build a bigger model at a group level, and start seeing what things are important in this network? And, and not thinking like, “Okay, I'm gonna just call aphasia…and we all are used to saying ‘aphasia is a disorder of language. Blah, blah, blah,' could be also impacted.' But aphasia is a complex disorder, let's see how these all these things interact.” You don't have to assign the importance to A or B. Or say like, “Okay, I'm going to look at attention, maybe that's about language.” Instead, let's see how all of them are impacting each other and are some things more important than others. I think with this kind of approach…all of us have this thinking. We're just trying to come up with a model that addresses this. And eventually, then this kind of model doesn't have to be just limited to outcomes. People could integrate brain, genetics, you could have different layers. And that goes back to your work about interdisciplinary collaboration. When you start thinking about things as a network, that can also extend to the network of people who are doing work in aphasia. That if it's a complex disorder, and people are looking at all these complexities, because not everybody can do everything that we can take the network of future researchers, and then why not integrate and use that network model for the vision and see all these things? That's what we kind of really are trying to get at. KS: The potential is powerful. Wow. Well, you've got a manuscript in the works that's about this complexity of participation poststroke. I really enjoyed reading about the project. But one thing that really struck me in the findings was how positive affect impacted participation. Could you tell us about this and the project? SA: So this is all pre-existing data. We wanted to establish some sort of causal relationship at Time Point 1. For example at 3 months post discharge, can you predict something at 12 months post discharge? And one the reasons we were interested in positive affect is that we always think about depression, but positive affect is there too, right? And having positive affect could impact people in a positive way. We wanted to look at all these things, put them on the network and see how they're interacting to determine what might be causing or establishing some sort of causality. What was really interesting is that we thought that perhaps social support would predict participation. But it was really positive affect early on, that was predicting many of these things. When you really start thinking about it, it's not that surprising, because if you're feeling positive, and psychology, then you're going to seek out more help. And then you're going to seek out more help, you might participate more in the community. But having that affirmation is critical, because then once again, it goes back to a question mental health support. How can we focus on positive affect, as well, in our treatment? Maybe, if that's kind of integrated with intervention. If people are feeling better, or happier with that sort of, you know, give them some push towards seeking more help? And it's all cyclical, right? And that's what we are seeing, at least in this early work. KS: Oh, it's really interesting. I think clinically we know that in our gut, but is there something we can do to promote that or help support that down the road? This fabulous, fabulous! Well, Sameer, this time has gone by quickly. I've enjoyed the conversation. As we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with our listeners? SA: Thank you for having me here. And it's a privilege being in this field, especially as somebody who was trained early on as a linguist, and now I'm doing complete something else. And I'm working with clinicians. It's an honor to participate. It's really a privilege. Thank you for having me here. KS: It's fabulous that you're here and doing this important collaborative work. Thanks for spending time with us today. You've given us lots of food for thought. Listeners, check out the show notes and I'll have links to all of the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab details there as well as Sameer's work and some of the other things that we talked about during today's conversation. On behalf of Aphasia Access, we thank you for listening to this episode of the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast. For more information on Aphasia Access and to access our growing library of materials go to www.aphasiaaccess.org If you have an idea for a future podcast topic email us at info@aphasiaaccess.org. Thanks again for your ongoing support of Aphasia Access. Websites and Social Media Shirley Ryan Ability Lab https://www.sralab.org/ Shirley Ryan Think + Speak Lab https://www.sralab.org/research/abilitylabs/think-speak-lab Shirley Ryan Affective and Emotion Rehabilitation (SAfER) Lab https://www.saferlab.net/ Shirley Ryan Ability Lab on Twitter/Facebook @AbilityLab Interested in Digging Deeper? Ashaie, S., & Castro, N. (2021). Exploring the complexity of aphasia with network analysis. Journal of Speech-Language-Hearing Research, 64(10), 3928-3941. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_JSLHR-21-00157 Ashaie, S. A., & Cherney, L. R., (2020). Eye tracking as a tool to identify mood in aphasia: A feasibility study. Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, 34(5), 463-471. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1545968320916160 Ashaie, S. A., Engel, S., & Cherney, L. R. (2022). Test-retest reliability of heart-rate variability metrics in individuals with aphasia. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 18, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2022.2037438 Ashaie, S. A., Hung, J., Funkhouser, C. J., Shankman, S. A., & Cherney, L. R. (2021). Depression over time in persons with stroke: A network analysis approach. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2021.100131 Mitchell, A. J., Sheth, B., Gill, J., Yadegarfar, M., Stubbs, B., Yadegarfar, M., & Meader, N. (2017). Prevalence and predictors of post-stroke mood disorders: A meta-analysis and meta-regression of depression, anxiety and adjustment disorder. General Hospital Psychiatry, 47, 48–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2017.04.001
Your favorite podcast hosts Jason A. Coombs and Samantha Tuozzolo are back with the hilarious and extremely talented Hannah Shankman, who shares how not getting into a musical theatre collegiate program led to her booking the revival of ‘HAIR' on Broadway, the joy of bringing Fannie Brice to life in a regional production of the iconic musical ‘FUNNY GIRL', and a few of past ‘survival jobs' that helped impact her career as an artist! Before closing out the episode with a fun trivia game of ‘Musical Word Association', this vocal powerhouse shares the importance of building your craft in acting classes and what would be her perfect artistic day. The episode opens with Samantha and Jason sharing a mic check where they rave about the current ‘INTO THE WOODS' Broadway revival and about the hit horror comedy film ‘BODIES BODIES BODIES' starring Lee Pace, Pete Davidson and Amandla Stenberg! The exclusive video can be found on Broadway World and the audio only can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible or any of your other favorite podcast apps. You can support the podcast and the hosts at www.buymeacoffee.com/SurvivalJobsPod and on Instagram at @surivaljobspod | @SammyTutz | @JasonACoombs. Please excuse any sound issues, Friends! We are still in a pandemic!! Info on Hannah Shankman: Follow Hannah on Instagram Check out Hannah's Official Website Mic Check Links: New Horror Comedy "Bodies Bodies Bodies" Trailer 'Into the Woods' on Broadway Tickets Important Links: Abortion Funds Website Plan C Pills Website National Write Your Congressman Link How to help Uvalde families NPR Article Check out Six Ways to Help the Buffalo Shooting Victims Check out Nine Ways to Be a Better Ally to Black People Support Women's Rights: Register to VOTE here Where to Donate to Support Access to Abortions Right Now Info on Your Hosts: Follow Samantha: Instagram. | Samantha's Official Website here Follow Jason on Instagram | Twitter. Broadway World Article on our Season 2 Launch Party Check out Jason's Official Website here Check out and support The Bridgeport Film Fest Support Us... Please! If you're feeling generous, Buy Us A Coffee HERE! Please don't become complacent: Support the Black Mamas Matter Alliance Support Families Detained and Separated at the Border. Support the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund. Support Black Trans Folx here Donate to the Community League of the Heights (CLOTH) Support the People of Palestine How to be an Ally to the AAPI Community 168 Ways to Donate in Support of Black Lives and Communities of Color The New York Times: On Mexico's Border With U.S., Desperation as Migrant Traffic Piles Up PBS: How to help India during its COVID surge — 12 places you can donate Covid quarantine didn't stop antisemitic attacks from rising to near-historic highs Opening and Closing Theme Music: "One Love" by Beats by Danny | Game Music: "Wake Up" by MBB. If you enjoy Survival Jobs: A Podcast be sure to subscribe and follow us on your preferred podcast listening app! Also, feel free to follow us on Instagram and Twitter! Thank you!!
André Brisson, P. Eng., is the host of The Impulsive Thinker Podcast, the podcast for the high-achieving ADHD entrepreneur. Andre owns an entrepreneurial consulting engineering company and recently started Tactical Breakthroughs where he is developing the ADHDTransformation Journey program. Diagnosed late in life with severe ADHD and mild Asperger's(ASD), the mechanisms and systems he created to overcome his undiagnosed ADHD havehelped him succeed. He credits his undiagnosed ADHD as key to his success and a factor in restricting success. Since discovering how to turn his ADHD into a strength, people havesought him out for help with using their ADHD as a strength to drive success. André Brisson has a special ability is devouring and learning complex information and simplifying for others to solve complex problems. Like most entrepreneurs, André has started multiple companies, the two of which failed for various reasons. Learning from those failures, André now operates three very successful companies, including a self-managing entrepreneurial engineering firm specializing in niche markets that require unique training, experience, and impulsive instinct to try new things. Enjoy! In this episode Peter and Andre discuss: 00:45 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing! 00:48 - Welcome Andre Brisson! 02:40 - What is your success key for imparting complex information to the neurotypical? Ref: Ringette 04:15 - Simplifying the complex 05:06 - On the differences between informing and teaching 05:30 - When did you get diagnosed and what brought all that about? 06:02 - On inventing a “character” for yourself to be perceived as “not abnormal”. 07:00 - On then importance of being unique 07:45 - You said you were beginning to scare your kids- can you go into details on that? Ref: emotional dysregulation 09:55 - Have you ever bought anything strictly on impulse? Tell us in the comments! ;-) 11:00 - Parenting with ADHD/mild Asperger's prior to a diagnosis 12:20 - So when you got diagnosed, what was the treatment plan? Ref: DBT, CBT Executive Function What is Time Blindness? 13:36 - On learning your strengths and maintaining, managing and delegating what's not best for you. Aka Peter's “life rules” 15:15 - A bit more on delegating and staying in the lane, on the road. 16:38 - How can people find more about you? Email: andre@andreb.ca André Brisson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andre.brisson.1447/ LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrebrisson/ Twitter: @fatrol Website: www.andreb.ca Objective Engineering Inc. Website: www.objectiveeng.ca Tactical Breakthroughs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TacticalBTs LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tactical-breakthroughs/ Twitter: @tacticalbts Website: www.tacticalbts.com The Impulsive Thinker Podcast Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/impulsivethinkerpodcast LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/impulsive-thinker-podcast/ Twitter: @impulsivthinker Website: www.theimpulsivethinker.com 16:51 - Andre, thank you so much! Ref: Faster Than Normal the book! 17:75 - Thank you. Guys, as always thanks so much for subscribing! Do you have a cool friend with a great story? We'd love to hear. I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via email at peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 19:08 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits — TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat: [00:00:38] Hey everyone, Peter. Shankman welcome to the episode of Faster Than Normal. I'm thrilled that you're here. It is great to have you again, we have a fun guest today. I'm gonna start with his tagline because his tagline pretty much says everything ;it's simplifying your complexities, which I think is just the best description I've ever heard of someone who works with people with A D D ADHD, people who are. ADHD. I love that. It's just so clear. Andre, Brisson and I, I screwed it up. I tried my was really hard to get. That was good. Was good's the host of the Impulsive Thinker podcast, very similar to FTN. Podcast for high achieving ADHD entrepreneurs. He owns an entrepreneur consulting engineering company, and recently started another company called Tactical Breakthroughs where he's developing an ADHD transformation journey program. He was diagnosed later in life with severe ADHD and mild Asperger's and the mechanisms and systems he created much like the stuff I did to overcome his undiagnosed ADHD have helped him succeed and he credits his undiagnosed as a key to his success and a factor in restricting success as well. So that's ING to discover, um, Since discovering how to turn his ADHD into a strength people have out for help using their ADHD as well. You talk in your bio about how you have special ability for taking complex information and simplifying for others and first thought, when I heard that was something that happened with me. And I think my mom, like five years ago when she got a new iPhone and she was having a problem doing like four things. And so I just went over there. The their, my parents' apartment. And I'm like, here, gimme the phone done. Dun dun dun. She's like, great, but I didn't learn how to do it. Right. Right. And I realized I'm terrible at taking complex information that I understand and teaching people how to understand it. I just want to do it and get it done. That's an ADHD thing. So let's, let's start there. What is, what is your sort of success key there where you actually have the ability and the, the patience or whatever it is to take that information and simplify it down so other people can learn it as opposed to just doing it for them. [00:02:55] Andre: Well, the, to me, that's the key difference is I don't do it for them. I've always helped people understand, break down something complex into simple steps or layman terms so that they can act on it. And then they can think about it differently to act on it at a future time. Um, like for example, and on in Canada here, we have Ringette. It's a, it's a, it's a sport on ice for women. So basically they got a rubber ring with a spear, their stick. And I, I referee then I was in an evaluator and, uh, an officially evaluator. So what I actually did was I always asked them what's. The rule, like usually you guys say this occurred, this occurred that I call it right or not. So I go by and says, what's the rule. The rule says this. And then we break down the steps of what occurred and apply the actual rule to those steps. So I step it out for people so that they can understand it. And if you don't understand the first way, I tackle it at a different angle until they get it. And what I'm trying to teach them is stepping out the thought process to come with their own conclusions, with the facts that they know they already had. And didn't realize it. Okay. [00:04:04] Peter: That makes sense. Yeah, it does. It does. It's interesting. Cause that, that takes patience and, and that's one of the few things that most people with ADHD simply don't have anywhere near half of. [00:04:15] Andre: Mm-hmm yeah. The thing is a lot of times I can simplify that complex information. So someone understands it and so that they can act on it and I can make it real. So usually I, I I'm able to connect something that's in their life or someone else's life or mine. And that's what I do a lot on the podcast is this is a snare that happened. It kind of happened to me. And then people, once you make it real people seem to click with it better. [00:04:39] Peter: Yeah. Makes sense. And, and yeah, I mean, that's, that's a, a, you know, my keynote speaking trait, you tell stories that people have people who relate to and all of a sudden, it's not some guy on stage talking about something foreign, it's something. Oh yeah. I get that. [00:04:51] Andre: Yeah. I. I had a chat today with two different people. We, I kind of, I blurted this out and I thought it was pretty smart now to think about it now, but I think there's a difference between informing to understand versus educating, to teach. So if, and for me, I was talking about advocacy as you know, I, I stopped educating people. I just tried to inform people so they can understand adult ADHD and the differences. [00:05:17] Peter: That makes a lot of sense. I think that also the more informed they are, the more they feel like they can have a handle on it, as opposed to. I guess educating. Yeah. Yeah. They might not necessarily get, no. That makes sense. Tell us about, um, your background. You said you were late, you were late, uh, diagnosed how late? [00:05:36] Andre: Uh, about four years ago when I was 44. Oh, wow. Um, and then that was a, that was all because of a life Tempest. As I've been calling had three perfect storms collide at once. Um, got into a bad business partnership. I got bored with my first company once it got successful. So I S sabatoged that. Things weren't going well at home. And my Sy symptoms overtook me and controlled me for a couple of years to the point where my kids are just looking at me scared. And I said, I gotta get help. Huh. And got the diagnosis. I went actually to get the diagnosis to prove it wasn't ADHD. Cause I thought there was something worse, wrong with me. Because that diagnosis, like it was too simple of a solution to explain my last 44 years and develop a character that I became so I can fit in and not be looked as abnormal. And then, so I got really good at playing this character. Now I'm learning how to be me and to differentiate the two, because it almost became, you know, I almost, I brainwashed myself to believe that that was the person I was or shouldn't be. [00:06:38] Peter: No, I get that. I mean, it's, it's, you know, fitting in and not being, uh, you know, and not sort of ever really fitting in with the crowd or with, with, uh, any group in, in school, you know, and that takes a toll. I don't think, I think we're just starting to realize what kind of toll that takes on people, um, and how much, uh, that that's re you know, those early forming, forming years are really responsible for sort of right. The kinda stuff you deal with. [00:07:03] Andre: And then I was overlooked because I was doing well in school. Like I'm also gifted. Um, and so since you're successful and you're doing well in school, you can't have it. You're just not doing what you're supposed to. You're not trying to hard enough for, you know, stop being unique. That was my favorite word. You're too unique to be part of this and I've always fought the right to be unique. And I always thought we should all, we're all different. I understood why we were always trained to say we're everyone's alike, but we're not. We're all unique. [00:07:35] Peter: So what, when you get, I'm curious, you mentioned something, you said, um, you said you had symptoms that were starting to, uh, that were starting to scare your kids. Ex can you go into detail on that? [00:07:47] Andre: Oh, emotional dysregulation times 2 million. Um, it didn't take much to spark me off. And then all I would do was I'd just be screaming at them for something silly. And when I started being cognizant of a screaming at them, for being silly, my brain was actually saying, Hey buddy, you're overreacting here. You should stop. And then I got the other part of my brain going, eh, forget it. Let's keep going. I'm already into it. Um, so when I saw those look in their eyes, it gave me a. It scared me cuz I saw myself. Um, there when I was a child and that's when I said no, no more, no more. So I went and got help. So the emotional dysregulation definitely took over, um, and enforced, uh, and then my impulsivity and the no filter uh, aspect of my brain having no filter, just my impulsivity, my ver my words would just come out and I just started not caring anymore. And that's when I said that, that, that the symptoms took over, um, impulsive bias, impulsive business partnerships, knowing that it was not going to be good. Um, and for me, I realized with time, since my diagnosis, I have a fear of being idle and when I get bored, that's when I could become dangerous. And that's when, so my physical hyperactivity, even at, as an adult kicks in, if I'm bored and then what happened was with my other company, once the startup phase was done and we're successful in maintaining success and having good gradual growth, I was bored. The, the entertainment, the interest was gone. So I created chaos. Impulsively trying this, trying that in muscle dysregulation, continuing. Um, and, and then just going on with the inattention, not caring, I had a really great point and it just escaped me. It'll come back to that's yeah. [00:09:46] Peter: I mean, that's that happens all the time. You, you go down the route, press rabbit, home, like, wait, my original point was like five feet away from that. Yeah. Um, I think that probably, I think every episode [00:09:55] Andre: and the impulsivity of buying stuff. You know, spending sling money, losing cash flow, all that type of stuff. That was it. [00:10:03] Peter: It's interesting. I've never, I, I, I, I understand that. And I get that. I I'm fortunate. I don't think it ever, I never went down that rabbit hole too much, but I've certainly made impulse. I mean, you know, mm-hmm, virtually everything I've ever bought in my life has been impulse by, I, I do you wind up doing research on the product you bought after you bought it? [00:10:22] Andre: um, No. I usually do all the research ahead of time. So I know what I'm buying is good is just deciding to do it. Like the one was, Hey, we got a bunch of cash in the bank account. Um, I've been looking at building a server. This is quite a few years ago getting a server for the office. We got a big team, so I'm just gonna blow 40 grand right now, rather on a finance plan. Um, cuz at the same time I didn't care. Um, which was part of it, which was the interest part. Um, but the other thing too Peter. I think that I think a lot of people are getting diagnosed later in life. And for me, I never realized this about two years ago was. It really started to take control. My symptoms. When I had kids, when they disrupted my, my rhythm at home, my routine at home, that was my calm down time. When I got home, I could rejuvenate and now having being stuck, cuz you're scheduled being disrupted all the time. Cuz kids just want to be with you. They just wanna last minute try different things and no, no, I like, I just sat down, I'm ready to do a bunch of stuff and now you're disrupting me. So that's when I think it started to steamroll the effects of these symptoms. [00:11:35] Peter: I totally totally get that. It's it's a, having a kid. I got diagnosed before I had my daughter, but it was Def it's definitely a, um, you know, you sort of, you get this vibe where it's like, okay, uh, dinner's over, you know, I have an hour till I have to put her to bed, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna sit down and breathe and just whatever. And then it's like, dad play with me. And of course I, I will, but it took a while to sort of, uh, be able to focus entirely. Right, right. And [00:12:01] Andre: not oh, huge. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you feel shitty as a, as a parent, cuz you can't give your full attention or you're always thinking, how can I get outta this? I , how can go back to what I was doing exactly. Cause I need to get that done. I gotta get it done. What's going on? Right? [00:12:14] Peter: No question about it. So when, so when you got diagnosed, what, what was the, uh, what was the treatment plan? Was it medication? Was it, . [00:12:22] Andre: We, uh, tried medication, uh, I think I'm part of that 20% that doesn't work well. Um, but I think the, some of the medication I was on at that time, I needed it just to settle and almost had stopped my brain for a while so I can just catch my breath and take everything in. And then, um, Slowly got off of it. Um, but for me, the big thing is I just hyper-focused for a good year and a half on learning everything I could about ADHD interesting and simplifying it. And that's why I tell people like educating yourself the effects and then is huge. And then I was part of therapy group therapy. Now I'm just finishing up my dialectal behavioral therapy. I've done cognitive behavioral therapy, ah, even the group therapy on how to have fun. But it was a neurotypical direction, but anyways, um, a lot of talking with similar people helped. And then for me to simplify ADHD down to, I think it's its core, it's an executive functioning dysfunction and time blindness. Those two affects the, the, the, the DSM symptoms of inattention hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention. Um, that made a lot of sense to me. And then at the same time, shortly before my ADHD diagnosis, I got diagnosed with type two diabetes. And that's when I realized I can't get rid of it. Like I diabetes, I can't get rid of it. Nothing I can do can cure it, but I can manage it and extend my life. And that's what I saw with ADHD. .Manage the symptoms so I can work well. And I had a mantra my whole time for a long time saying your strengths can become your weaknesses. And when I put that together with my ADHD symptoms, as long as I can manage my symptoms, That's how, why I succeed as an entrepreneur and those are my strengths, but if I let them go be overutilized or underutilized and then become my strengths. And that's when I say ADHD can become a disorder, is when they're impeding your day to day. [00:14:23] Peter: I agree. I, I think it's another way of saying, you're saying the same thing that I say a different way, which is, you know, you have to have. These life rules that you can't deviate from because you know, you, your brain works a certain way. And so you put these right pro processes into place that allow you to utilize it to your best ability. Mm-hmm . And if you, if you deviate from that, you're gonna go off the road. [00:14:42] Andre: Right. And, and then the other thing I discovered too, so for, I don't know, I can't do math. I'm an engineer. I need a calculator here. Um, so about a good 20 years, all I did was read all the self-help books. I've taken almost every assessment out there to identify strengths, but my therapist actually said you were doing all that to find out what was wrong with you to concentrate on what's not good enough to build on. So with my diagnosis, I took there's three good tools that I use that really identifies my talents and strengths. And. Take those. And I help people with these assessments too, to understand what's your unique strength and talent. So if we could just stay in those abilities, Then it's easy to hyperfocus and you're having a lot of fun and you're not, and don't waste your time on things you're not good at and you don't like doing that. So as an entrepreneur, it's handy, you, you got staff, you can have people, you delegate a lot of those, but I help people understand what their unique talents and strengths are, where they should be spending their time, where they can get a lot of energy and enjoyment every day, be creative and then have a team around you that just take care of the stuff you don't like. [00:15:50] Peter: That's a hundred percent given you, have you have someone or people to do the stuff that you're terrible at? I mean, that's, you know, for 14 years now, I've had, I've had my assistant, it's a game changer. [00:16:00] Andre: Yep. Like we got a minimal limited brain mental brain, uh, energy, right. Every day. And I think ADHD, we just have a really good ability to effectively use it to run all day, or we have a really great efficient way to inefficiently use our mental energy and at the end of the day, it, so if we're starting to do things we don't like to do all day, then we're really, really burnt out at the end of the day. But if we can stay in that lane, man, you can do that seven days straight and not get, get tired. [00:16:29] Peter: It's a great way to put it. It's a great way to close too. I wanna keep us to our 20 minute mark. Uh, tell us how people could find you? [00:16:36] Andre: Uh, you can find me at, uh, Andre, Andre, b.ca I'll take anyone's email. Um, but you can find me on LinkedIn. Our tactical bts.com is another source. [00:16:47] Peter: We'll put all the, all the, all your links that you gave us. We'll put 'em in the, uh, in the podcast notes. Andre, thank you so much for taking the time. This was really, really informative. We're definitely gonna have you back, uh, at some point in the near future. [00:16:57] Andre: Well, I appreciate you having me, Peter. And, um, like I said, like, I don't think I said this, but, uh, yet till now, um, you're Faster Than Normal book. I actually bought it five years ago, thinking it was one how I can work faster. then I bought it again, uh, and read it. And then I found the other book, but I think I really liked your aspect too, that, you know, it's not a disorder. It's our, it's a, it's a very unique ability of doing things and to not thinking as a negative. And, and make it work. And I really, a lot of stuff in there I re not reflected it hit me. I can, I understand exactly what was in there. And it was also comforting to know what I created in the past. Unknowingly. I was on the right track. So I thought it was a really good book and I do recommend it to a lot of people. [00:17:45] Peter: Thank you, man. That's a really, really kind of you. Guys as always, Faster Than Normal, We wanna hear what you're thinking. We wanna hear of any guests you might wanna hear from, shoot us a, a email Peter@shankman.com. We're on all the socials. You know, our, our handles by now. Thank you for listening. We will see again next week with another guest, we appreciate you and know that ADHD and all forms of neurodiversity are gifts, not curses! We'll see you next week! [00:19:08]Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!
Today we are joined by Richard Shankman, an accomplished meditation teacher, cofounder of the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies and author of The Experience of Samadhi; An In-depth Exploration of Buddhist Meditation (Shambhala, 2008). Richard discusses the importance for each individual to find their path to freedom, and how systems or philosophies remain mere techniques to assist us with our direct experience and knowledge of liberation. An expert in meditation, Richard shares his profound understanding of the samadhi or jhana states - advanced stages of practice often misunderstood, shedding light on ways to understand the role of samadhi in enlightenment.We also discuss more recent developments in Richard's practice, working with a healing group comprised of advanced meditators, and the parallels between notions of healing and purification. He shares with us an idea that form or manifestation may have a kind of essence, which we are familiar with as love. In closing, Richard shares the beauty and simplicity of his current practice, "open the heart and let go".www.richardshankman.orgLiked what you heard? Help us reach more people! Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts Start Energy Healing Today!Unlock your healing potential with our informative and fun introductory 10 hour LIVE online class in energy healing Our Flagship Training is Setting the Standard in Energy HealingThe next 100 hour EHT-100 Energy Healing Training is open for enrollment! LIVE & online - 10th February - 21st July 2024. Join us in Bali in 2024 - Our Retreat AND first in-person EHT-100 Training are now booking! Contact Field Dynamics Email us at info@fielddynamicshealing.com fielddynamicshealing.com Thanks for listening!
Today we're catching up with Peter en route to Northern Italy where he and his girlfriend Gabriella have recently spent a few days away. We're allowed a candid peek into their serious relationship, and of course how ADHD plays it's part too. This is a good and fun one, enjoy! [Editors note]: It is not lost on their sound engineer that G&P are so ‘in the moment' that the windows of their vehicle remain down during the entirety of this recording. We'd like to say thank you for excusing the wind tunnel background ;-) In this episode Peter and Gabriella discuss: 00:45 - Thank you so much for listening and for subscribing! 01:00 - Welcome to my wonderful girlfriend Gabriella Ribeiro! 01:44 - So why don't you tell us where we are, where we're heading, and what we just survived? 02:15 - Would you say it's more the journey or the destination? 04:00 - Why do you think my brain is doing what it's doing since we've been together; the good and the bad? 05:20 - The ADHD trouble w/ wanting the grandest of the very best, always for those you love 06:00 - We hate making mistakes and we assimilate to our surroundings in funny ways.. 08:00 - When you have ADHD you're your own worst critic, but by waaay much more than most. 09:00 - You can scroll to hear Gabriella's episode about Iceland's Evolving Seven Wonders here! Ref: Gabby's photo @theexplorateur on INSTA 10:54 - So, [jokingly], is there anything good about dating someone with ADHD? 11:31 - A little about dopamine hits 12:00 - There is no accurate nor perfect matchmaking system for those of us with ADHD 13:33 - Some honest, important information for you about relationships, dear listener. 15:04 - One of Gabriella's greatest, if not most important moments with Peter 15:54 - One of the problems with ADHD that we're trying really, really hard to change is… 17:00 - How not to break-up in the Frankfurt airport 17:40 - A short story on ‘using your words' 19:26 - Gabby, what advice do you have for anyone listening to this podcast who's dating or about to date some with ADHD? 20:45 - How can people find more about you? On the Web: The X8 Podcast also https://www.gabbyribeiro.com/about Socials: @theexplorateur on INSTA and Twitter and aka Explorateur Journeys on FB Buy her book “I'm Just Saying...: Real advice for real girls in a real world. From a real Mom” on Amazon 21:15 - Where are we going anyway? En route to Monterosso 21:16 - On trust 21:41 - Thank you! Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, we'd love to know. Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 22:27 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits — TRANSCRIPT via Descript and then corrected.. somewhat: Hello everyone Peter Shankman and welcome to another episode of Faster Than Normal. This one is interesting. I am recording this live from, um, a car, uh, in, uh, just outside Milan Italy, where I landed about feels like about three hours ago cause we. Uh, for two hours through immigration? No, it wasn't two hours felt like it, but, um, I wanted to have, I, I wanted this interview for a while. This is gonna be an interview with me and my wonderful girlfriend, Gabriella Ribeiro um, Gabby and I have been together now about three years. And, um, I don't know why I have no idea why she, why she continues to, to, to, to stay with me. Um, but she has, she has watched and, and, and in some cases, been a victim of my ADHD for the longest time and, um, I'm very fortunate that she's still here, but I thought it'd be interesting to talk to her and ask her no holds barred, sort of what it's like to, um, uh, love someone with the level of, of, of ADHD that I have. So Gabby welcome. [00:01:42] Gabriella: Thank you. Good to be here. [00:01:44] Peter: So why don't you tell us where we are and, and where we're heading and, and what we just survived? [00:01:49] Gabriella: Oh, we survived a minor line, but to you, it was a big deal. And I understand [00:01:53] Peter: it wasn't a minor line. It wasn't, it wasn't so much, that was a line. It was a line that kept, uh, we we'd be waiting in line. And then for some reason, 20 people would pass us cuz they were directed by someone else to go there. That's the part that frustrated me. [00:02:07] Gabriella: I understand that, but we pushed our way through. So actually we're going hiking for two days in Italy and that's kind of what we do, you know, we, we go on these short trips and that I think is, is what helps ground you. To talk about ADHD? I think that's one of the core things that I notice about you is that even though we're always on the move, you feel most grounded when we are actually are en route. [00:02:26] Peter: I think a lot of that has to do with, well, the airplane, obviously being on a plane, you know, the, the, the place where you're most confined is really the most freeing for a lot of people. I think the, one of the things that you and I have in common is that we both enjoy the journey. The journey is the destination. As much as the destination is. You know, eight hours on a flight to, to Italy for two days of hiking. Most people think it's crazy, but it's perfect for us. It, it keeps us, uh, not only grounded, but it, it, it resets us. It resets us, resets our brain. Now that being said, travel, uh, is a huge part of your life. It's what you do for a living as well. Um, but it's also, you know, a huge part of what we do and we, how much we enjoy it and, and really, um, embrace, uh, the world as our playground. For lack of a better word. Now, there are times I think, and she's she has, she's laughing her ass off about this, but there are times when, when, um, for whatever reason, the, the, uh, travel goes awry or we wind up in certain situations. And I think one of the things that I've learned most from you is I don't have to control everything. You know, everyone I've traveled with previously, I, I was in charge, right. I was telling where we're going here, we're going this, we're doing that. And what I've learned is that when you're with someone who actually also knows what they're doing, it's okay to relinquish control. And I, I love that you're just, you're just it hysterics over here, cuz I'm sure you're thinking of many of those stories. So, so, you know, sh shared not only some of the funny stories, but also, um, sort of why you think my brain works the way it does when, when I sort of in the past have had that need to sort of take control for good or for bad. [00:04:08] Gabriella: Well, I think you've allowed yourself, like, you know, to, to enjoy and to be happy. I think, you know, and that's, that's a huge part and I think you've allowed, you've seen what can happen when somebody, when you trust somebody, maybe that's what it is. Maybe you trust me, maybe you trust, I don't know, expertise in, in what I do for a living, that kind of thing, but that's a huge thing. And I think that, you know, maybe it's part of your ADHD, but I don't think you trust easily. I think it takes a while. It took a while maybe for us to, and I think when you start to see things unfold the right way and you actually let yourself enjoy them, even if you didn't control them, you start to see things in a different way. That's what I think. But I think also one of the things I love most about you is that you always want things to be perfect for me. And sometimes things just, it, it's not even that they will be perfect for me, but in your eyes, they're not the perfect that you envision, whether we're getting lost in an airport or you're leading me out of security and back in, cause you're insisting, you know, one way and I actually know the other, but I don't fight with you. I just kind of let you do your thing. But I, I think it's, I think that's part of, of the way that your head works is that, you know, you, you have this design in your head and you want it to be like that, but you want it to be like that for me, most importantly, which is amazing, but I think it's, um, you know, sometimes. Have to just let things be, you know, there's air perfect. [00:05:24] Peter: There's definitely an ADHD factor there in that we do. When you have ADHD, you want the grandest of grand, right? You want that, you know, and that, and that's one of the biggest problems is, is, you know, a random Tuesday could be the most incredible experience you've ever had when someone, you know, something shows up at your home or whatever, but it, it also. Um, it, it, you have to fight that sort of how to let other people take control sometimes .The incident she's referring to, we were in Frankfurt airport and, um, I was totally sure I knew the way to get to the lounge, uh, waiting for our connection. And it turns out I took us out of security. Then we had another 45 minute, wait to get back into security. And then I was just angry, but the irony was, I was angry at myself, right. I was angry at myself because I screwed up and I made the mistake and I hate that. Right. And, and of course I took it out on you. Um, but you know, it was one of those that was a learning moment for me. Like today we spent 45 minutes in line trying to get through immigration. And I just didn't say anything. I let you control it. I let you direct it. And we were there and eventually I wound up cursing at a cop, I think, in, in Italian, but, or Spanish, Spanish, whatever. Japanese, but that's one of the interesting things is also is that when you do travel with someone who's ADHD, they wanna immerse themselves in every aspect of where they are. Um, but their brains don't work as fast. So it is not uncommon to to see me go into a country and start speaking a completely different language than what is in the country. True. [00:06:48] Gabriella: Uh, true. And I think it's, it's part of like, I think you wanna impress me, you know, so you've got like a. A few like core words that you use no matter where we go, like in Iceland, you'll say Ola , you know, and that's, that's perfectly fine. But I think one of the, you know, I would say, you know, you said you wanted like no holds barred. One of the most frustrating things I think is when you get something wrong and we all do right. Cuz I get things wrong all the time, but you get really mad at me when you get something wrong. And I you've said that that's an ADHD thing. I don't know. I think we, you know, it's, it's been a, I. wouldn't say a challenge, but you know, it's something I've had to understand about you. I've had to come to understand. And I think it's, it's okay. You know, we all deal with it in different ways, but I noticed that that is a recurring, recurring thing. [00:07:33] Peter: Like I've been working on it. [00:07:34] Gabriella: You have been, that's what I'm saying, you know, you definitely have, but I do see, you know, it's, I, I see yourself frustration and something that is, is totally okay. On my side. [00:07:46] Peter: One of the interesting things, I mean, there's a reason for that .When you're, when you are ADHD, you know, you do, like you said earlier, you're doing everything to be perfect. And when things aren't perfect because of something I've done, right. Because of a mistake I've made, I am my own worst critic by everyone is, but when you're heavy ADHD, you're your own worst critic by a fact of a million. Right. So you're sitting there and I'm like, okay. The one thing I had to do, I managed to screw up and I've ruined the whole, in my mind, the whole vacation's ruined, [00:08:09] Gabriella: but it's really not. [00:08:11] Peter: I, well, it's obviously not, but you know, in my mind, I didn't get this one thing right, now we have to wait 45 minutes to go through security again, I'm the worst. I'm terrible. She's gonna leave me. This whole thing. Right. And, and, and I think to. compensate or to make up for that. I just get angry. And, and unfortunately the person I direct the anger at is, is the person closest to me, which would be you. Um, it's obviously not, I'm obviously not angry at you for my mistake, you know, , I do remember thinking, uh, as we're waiting online to go back into security and in Frankfurt a couple years ago, I'm like, why didn't she stop me? This is totally her fault. Why didn't she stop? Totally. And, and the thing was you tried to, but then I'm like, no, I know where we're going. So you didn't really have a choice in the matter. Um, you know, and it's, I think it's also the, the, there is that aspect of wanting to impress the person that you love. Um, and when it doesn't work for whatever reason. Um, you, you, you, you, the ADHD sort of takes over, um, I'm remembering Iceland. Um, we had a chance to see the Northern lights you have understand in Iceland, they wake you up at one in the morning with like some alarm, like, like, like the Nazi's are coming to like steal the silver and, and, and you, they wake you up in the middle of the night and, and you have to rush out, get your clothes on, rush outside to see the Northern lights which prolly only last for like 12 seconds. And so I, I brought all my camera gear and everything like that, and I go outside and I, I can't get, I get nothing. I get absolutely just black images of, of black skies, nothing. Gab Pulls out our iPhone, like click and gets this, this like national geographic quality photo. I was so pissed it sucked. Tell, tell me how I handled it. [00:09:42] Gabriella: You didn't handle it well, but it's okay. You know, I, I know you now. But again, you, you got really mad at me. You said, oh Gab, how nice, lovely shot on your iPhone 12? Or like, something like that. I don't know what the snarky voice and that's okay. Cuz, but I think also part of maybe it's the ADHD, but I think I've been seeing you definitely change on this is that sometimes you just have to get away from the phone. You know, use the phone a lot. I, I know that that's also part of, of being with you. You're on the phone a lot. Um, a lot of, you know, looking down, I think sometimes you have to let go of things and just enjoy, you know, like we did that. We went to South Africa speaking to travel and you were so in the moment and it was wonderful. You put down the phone, you were stopping taking pictures and watching lions and things like that. Sometimes you have to not always capture it, you know? So I think some of our best moments happen totally off of social media. [00:10:36] Peter: What's something that... And by the way, I went out a couple hours later and tried to get their Northern lights again and totally failed again. Um, [00:10:44] Gabriella: oh, and it got mad at me again. Yeah. [00:10:46] Peter: what, you know, everyone's listening to this, like my God, why is she with him? And I, so, so that being said, tell, say, say a good thing about dating someone with ADHD. [00:10:54] Gabriella: You asked, I just told you, I think you are so attentive. You want the world for me, you support me. You will give me opportunities. And I think that what I love about you is that you're just so creative. And I, I grew up with a prankster dad, right? So you spend your days. . Like either pranking me or, you know, you, you won't let one single day go by without making me smile or laugh. You send me things you think of me. And I think that's, that's maybe that's part of your focus too, is I love that you are so much focused on the relationship and you want it to work. And I, I love that about you. [00:11:31] Peter: Well, there's part of, part of ADHD is, is the constant quest for dopamine, right? And, and getting you to laugh or anyone to laugh and specifically the person you love; getting them to laugh is a dopamine hit. I'll get. dopamine and serotonin adrenaline out of that. And so, so as much as I enjoy doing it for you, cause I know you enjoy it. It's, it's a rush for me as well. Um, you know, the, the, one of the first things I remember one of the first pranks I ever played on you is I put, I put a roach on your suitcase. Yeah. Uh, at the airport. I don't know where we're going, but mal uh, Maldives, I put a, I put a roach your on your suitcase and, and I just re you know, you don't realize it's such a high, right. Watching you, no. [00:12:10] Gabriella: oh yeah.. It's total high. [00:12:11] Peter: You, you hated it. But, you know, [00:12:12] Gabriella: I loved, I loved it actually. And I said, Peter, you make me lose my shit every day. and that is, I would say one of the main reasons why I'm with you. [00:12:21] Peter: I mean, it's, it's not easy dating someone with ADHD without question and look, I mean, at the end of the day, your ADHD can only, only be blamed for so much. You have to take control of, of, of what you're doing. And I think I've, I've, I've been working on doing that. You know, my social acuity was never as strong to begin with, so I I've learned a lot, uh, from you and with you, but there's definitely, um, I couldn't, I don't think I could be with someone who couldn't accept a practical joke or something like that, just simply for the, the chemical high that gives me. Right. Makes me a better person. I mean, I, I prank you. I'm cracking up for the next six hours. And, and I'm the happiest person in the world, which is what you want. You wanna be with someone like that. So you definitely, you know, when you're looking to see who you're gonna date and your ADHD, think about the person who will understand, uh, the way your brain works and understand that, you know, they're not putting a roach in your bag or a rub. It was a rubber Roach, by the way, I should mention that not putting a rubber Roach in your bag to, uh, to annoy you or to bother you, but because they know if, if they. can make you laugh that's, that's happiness for them as well. It's, it's no different than when I was a kid and I would, I would speak out in class and make the kids laugh and, you know, get in trouble for it. I was trying to get dopamine to learn. [00:13:33] Gabriella: I think when you date someone with ADHD, you also have to embrace that. There's certain things that, that they need to do. And you've always told me this, I need this. I need X in order to do Y and you've always been very straight up in the, you know, and since the beginning, I need to exercise in order to feel okay to get on a plane. I need to have a half hour to myself playing a game before I can go out to dinner or, you know, whatever it is and you have structure. And I think it's important that to have a, a partner, I would say, you know, from my vantage point and what you need to, to allow that, you know, and not to make too many demands on things and just say, okay, you know, yes, I know he needs this, or yes, we're we're out, but he needs to step away from a crowd for a half an hour. That's okay. You know, and I think, um, it's understanding all of that and embracing it that helps make a relationship successful. [00:14:24] Peter: Think, I mean, I, I like to think there's, you know, the, the, the positives outweigh the negatives in that regard. Um, [00:14:31] Gabriella: Absolutely! [00:14:31] Peter: That, you know, we have, when we're together, we do have a blast, we have fun and, and we do support each other. I've always wanted a partner who would support me and who I could support as well. Um, you know, in life that's super couple as it were, um, that I think we are. Um, but yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't necessarily wish, uh, me on anyone. I think that know . I think that, that, you know, it takes a special person to understand someone with, with the kind of brain that, that, that faster than normal people have. [00:15:04] Gabriella: Well, one of my greatest moments with you and I'll show I'm gonna out you. Cause it was just so beautiful is that you, we were, I think we were in London. We went to go see a musical. We went to go see Back to The Future to and something happened where I think you, you, you took my watch charger overnight and I really needed to charge my watch, but you took it and you tried to convince me that my watch was already charged, which it wasn't, but you needed your watch chargeed, so that's fine. And then you sort of got on your knees the next day and said, why are you with me? I'm I'm ridiculous. I'm I'm this, like, you were beating yourself up so much, but to me it was just like, we share things. So it was, it was okay, but you, you always are questioning. And I, I, you know, just me to you, I wish that you wouldn't because to me, I think you're perfect and we're perfect. And we, we find our quirks. I think we find the, the beauty in our quirks. I have them too. [00:15:54] Peter: One of the problems with ADHD is, and I'm hoping this is one of the things I'm trying to change with the podcast, with the book and everything and my activism is that, um, people with ADHD are told they're broken for years for their entire life. And it's when you come across someone who doesn't see you as broken, but sees you as, um, special and not like short but special, but special. Like, you know, as in, as in wow, this, this guy is really amazing. Um, it's hard to believe that. Right. And, and you're sure that every day you're gonna do something, you know, that is going to, they're just gonna be like, this is ridiculous. He's not special. He's a moron. What the hell am I with him for? Right. And, and despite your protestations, no, I I'm having fun with you. I'm enjoy that. It's, it's hard to, um, sometimes it's very hard to believe that, Or to allow yourself to believe that. And, and that's one of things, you know, the constant, my, my, my, my constant, why are you with me type thing, isn't like a, a ploy for sympathy or a ploy for, for a compliment. But rather it's, it's a real question, you know, it's, it's like, you know, [00:16:59] Gabriella: I saw that, that day. I know [00:17:00] Peter: you've seen it many times. I mean, you've seen it, uh, you know, when we were waiting. To go back at the airport after I took us outta security, stuff like that, you know, it's like my God, why? And of course, because I'm mad at myself, cuz I know this is the moment you're totally gonna leave me. Right. [00:17:13] Gabriella: I Yeah, in the middle of the Frankfurt airport, [00:17:14] Peter: I wanted getting mad at you. Yes. Right? The, the classic favorite airport story ends with us finally getting back in and going to the lounge. And we had just gotten off a, a red eye flight to, to Europe. So we're waiting for a connection and we go to the lounge and, and they have showers and the, the woman looks at us. And she was so angry. She goes, do you want a, a suite, a shower suite for the both of you? And I go, I want my own suite . I took my own shower suite because I was so angry at myself and couldn't, and couldn't, uh, I had a, had a friend once who, who worked with, um, uh, high functioning, autistic children and like very young, like 2, 3, 4 years old. And her job was, she spent an entire year in school with them, trying to teach them to explain how they feel instead of hitting, instead of getting angry. And she tells this great story about, um, towards the end of the year, a kid was obviously upset and obviously angry at something. And she spent like five minutes saying, okay, Andrew, use your words, use your words. How do you feel? How . Are you feeling? What is the, what is the action that you're feeling right now? And he looked at her and he got really red in the face and he goes, I'm happy. right. And it's, it's literally how I feel. Sometimes it's like, I mean, like I'm so angry and I'm so happy that you're still with me. [00:18:19] Gabriella: That is so you, but I think one of the things you don't notice so much about yourself is how, just how funny you make everything. And I think I'm just so I'm grateful because I that's, the person I needed is that every single thing is funny, no matter what, like we always find the humor and things. And I, I, I don't, I don't think that's an ADHD thing, um, necessarily, but I think, um, you know, I think the world should know if they haven't noticed that about you already. [00:18:45] Peter: It definitely comes from. [00:18:46] Gabriella: You make everything fun. [00:18:47] Peter: It definitely comes from our families and our, you know, I mean, my dad was, was all about using humor to deflect everything growing up and, and, and so was, I, you know, it's [00:18:54] Gabriella: no, but you embrace it now. It's not as much of a deflection I, that I, I love when you, like, we were just laughing in this car right now until we were crying. Cuz you know, we rolled up and we're in Italy. So you should, you know, the driver's here and you should say chow and Peter goes Ola!! Like with the, with. The biggest sense of pride. Like the barrel chested, Ola, you know, [00:19:11] Peter: but that's, that's classic. That's classic me, like, okay, I'm in Italy, let's for some reason speak Spanish and you know, but on the flip side, I once convinced you that I understood Japanese and got you going for like 20 minutes. Um, and you were totally convinced. I, I understood Japanese. So in the end, um, what do you want people are, who, who listen to this podcast? A lot of them are in relationships with people at ADHD and they, they they're frustrated. They don't understand, you know, why is this happening? What, what advice would you give someone who's who is either dating or about to date someone they with ADHD you're about take that plunge. What would you say to them? [00:19:42] Gabriella: You have to open your mind and you have to talk, like, I think one of the things that saves us is that we talk about everything good or bad. And I think you have to be willing just, just like, you know, none, none of us are perfect. Right. And we all have, you have things that you have to adapt to about me that you necessarily don't like what you deal with. Um, you know, and I think that it's, it's a question of not getting so frustrated because what you think the person is doing is on the surface this is not what you believe it to be. Like. There are so many times where I see Peter frustrated, for example, and I immediately think it's me, he's got a problem with me. He's doing something, you know, whatever. And I think it's the understanding that you have to wrap your head around. It's not always about you and in a relationship that's really important. So you have to get to the core and also figure out what it is that helps them get through the day and embrace it, allow it, um, I hate that word, but you know what I mean? It just to let it be, yeah. And not get. so worried all the time that it's, that it's a reflection on you because that person needs to do that in order to be the best them for you. [00:20:44] Peter: Definitely. How can people find you? Cause you have actually a really interesting life apart from me, uh, even more so, even more interesting than, than just when you're with me. So how can people find you? What's your, what do you wanna get me Instagram or what. [[ On the Web: The X8 Podcast also https://www.gabbyribeiro.com/about Socials: @theexplorateur on INSTA and Twitter Buy her book “I'm Just Saying...: Real advice for real girls in a real world. From a real mom” on Amazon ]] [00:20:54] Gabriella: Sure. I'm the @theexplorateur on Instagram um, I do a little bit of everything in tourism, but I, [00:20:59] Peter: we host a podcast together as well. [00:21:01] Gabriella: We do! Called the X8 and we'll be back in the fall with that. [00:21:03] Peter: So that's a travel and a podcast where we travel around the world to beautiful locations and, and, and report on them. But awesome. Gabby, thank you so much. I mean, what the hell is she, you gonna do? We're in a car at 9:30' in the morning in the middle of Italy , trying, you know, driving to where are we going? [00:21:15] Gabriella: uh, we're going to Monterosso [00:21:16] Peter: Awesome! That's the other weird thing is that I have never been in a relationship before where I don't sometimes know, I don't know where we're going. Like there are two types people in the world. There's people who like plan everything out. And the people who wake up in the morning go, oh, what's the name of the hotel? Or, you know what airline? And, and it's, it's very strange to, to, to, to relinquish that control, but I'm starting to enjoy it. I'm starting to, I'm starting to like it. And, uh, at the end of the day, I'm I still have the, I still have the control over the airline. So that's, that's my thing. She can, Gabby can handle all the hotels. Guys thank you for listening, Gab thank you for taking the time to do this. Um, I'm at Peter, Shankman all the socials. As you guys know, we're at faster normal, um, you can file Instagram, Twitter everywhere. If you like what you hear, uh, drop us a review. If you have guests that you think might benefit from being on the podcast, let us know. We have a big shout out to Steven Byrom, our producer, who is gonna be so angry at me because I'm just recording the string in an iPhone 20 minutes of car sound. He's gonna have to delete, uh, he's gonna, he's gonna be, he's gonna be it's he's it's not gonna be good. He's gonna need therapy from this stuff! Steven, we love you. Thank you. [Love you too man! Hope this was at least legible!] Opening, uh, words performed by Bernie Bernie Wagenblast. Opening and closing theme composed by Steven Byrom, [he says thank you too], and we will see you guys next week with another interview. Thank you so much for listening. Stay safe. Stay well Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at shankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!
Kristin Wilcox has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Mississippi Medical Center and has spent over 20 years in academia as a behavioral pharmacologist studying drug abuse behavior and ADHD medications at Emory University and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She has authored several manuscripts published in peer reviewed scientific journals and presented her research at international scientific meetings. Her book “Andrew's Awesome Adventures with His ADHD Brain” shares her son's experiences with inattentive-type ADHD, and her insights on parenting an ADHD son. Dr. Wilcox serves on the executive board of the Inattentive ADHD Coalition, hoping to increase awareness and understanding of the inattentive subtype of ADHD in children and adults. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two sons. Enjoy! In this episode Peter and Kristin discuss: 1:00 - Intro and welcome Kristin Wilcox! 1:40 - Cocaine for research whaaahht?? 3:00 - Talk about inattentive-type ADHD? 4:45 - On adrenaline junkies. Ref Type T ADHD 6:50 - Is there a nature versus nurture component there? Ref: OneWheel & Multi-Access Trainer 9:00 - Tell us about the book! 10:30 - There was not much research in existence on inattentive ADHD in boys 10:52 - Does it occur in girls as well? 11:14 - What specifically are you studying in terms of drug abuse and behavior & things like that? Tell us a little more about your background? 12:15 - Is the book available everywhere? 14:15 - How can people find more about you and what you're doing? @ADHDAdventures on Facebook And you get get the book from Here and here-> on Amazon! 14:25 - Thank you Kristin! Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we'd love to know. Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 15:15 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits — TRANSCRIPT: — Yo, yo, Hey everyone. It is Peter Shankman. It is Faster Than Normal! It is another interview. It is a great Wednesday. Uh, it's a great Thursday, Thursday? Oh my God the weeks are rolling into one. My daughter goes on a field trip for three days overnight and I no longer know what day it is. Ridiculous. Okay. Welcome. My name is Peter. Shankman. Said that already. We're talking to Kristin Wilcox today. She's a doctor. She's a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Mississippi Medical Center has spent over 20 years in academia as behavioral pharmacologist studying drug abuse, behavior and ADHD medications at Emory University and John Hopkins University School of Medicine. In other words, she's much smarter than any of us. It is great to have you here Kristin. Then she has written a book called Andrew's Awesome Adventures with his ADHD Brain, where she shares her son's experiences with inattentive type ADHD and her insights on parenting an ADHD son. She's on the executive board of the inattentive ADHD coalition of an increasing awareness and understanding of yet attentive subtype of ADHD in children, adults. She lives in Maryland where there has been two sons, Kristen. Hi, welcome. Hi Peter. How are you today? I am great. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Um, it's funny. I remember probably in 2005, I dated a woman briefly who was doing her second PhD at Rutgers, I believe, and was also studying drug abuse. And the thing I found so amazing was that when you are studying drug abuse in a university setting an academic setting, I guess, for a PhD or better, or whatever, you basically can call the government and they deliver you drugs like illegal drugs, like they delivered through cocaine to her or to her lab, I guess. And I was just shocked by that because my first question was, so can you.. and she immediately shut me down and said, absolutely not! But it was an interesting question. They do actually, um, the, uh, the cocaine that we used to use in our, uh, experiments with. Cocaine that was confiscated off the street and then purified by the DEA and that's how we got our cocaine for our research. Unbelievable. The DEA was purifying their own cocaine. That is brilliant. I love it. That's awesome. All right. I just need to throw that out there. I remember she sent it to me. She goes, yeah, this stuff is like a hundred percent. Yeah, you wouldn't want to use it or something like that. That's crazy. Unreal. Well welcome. I'm glad, glad you're here. So tell us about, um, you know, we, we think of ADHD as both, um, you know, going down the rabbit hole of hyper-focus and also, you know; Hey, I'm bored. Give me some dopamine. Talk about inattentive ADHD? Um, well, I think the most important thing is that, uh, there's very minimal hyperactivity and impulsivity. So a lot of the times when people think about ADHD and especially ADHD in a boy, they think about a boy who's bouncing off the walls, who can't sit still in class, who's constantly fidgeting. They don't really pay attention to the boy that maybe, you know, kind of dreamy and forgetting to turn in his assignments and has a desk that's stuffed with undone worksheets. So that's probably the biggest thing to know about inattentive ADHD. They do also have the, uh, like, you know, the inattention and the forgetfulness and the disorganization, which also occurs with, um, the commonly thought of combined type, which does have the hyperactivity and the impulsivity, um, you know, and these kids are also, uh, they're very smart. Um, inattention has nothing to do with intelligence. Um, they're very creative. They're outside the box thinkers. They're great at problem solving. Um, they love risk-taking and adventure. They're adrenaline junkies. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Yes, my son actually wanted to skydive when he graduated from high school. Well, tell him to give me a call and we'll make that happen. Haha! I'm glad somebody will go with him because it's not me. So that's interesting. I remember there was a, there was a study. I wish I could remember the guy's name, but it was, there was a TV show, probably the learning channel or something 15, 20 years ago, when I first heard it, got to me and it was talking about someone who came up with this concept of type T. T positive and T negative, where T is this adrenaline junkie right? And empty, positive T is someone who gets their adrenaline in positive ways based on upbringing. You know, they be able to do public speaking, whatever. And T negative is those who find it in negative ways, you know, drug addiction, um, um, you know, crime, things like that. And so, so in ADHD are they are adrenaline junkies. Uh, they are adrenaline junkies, but it can also go both ways they can. Um, you know, like you mentioned before regulating dopamine, they can regulate dopamine by jumping out of an airplane, but they can also regulate dopamine by taking drugs or driving fast. Um, so it's kind of a, it's a double-edged sword. Like the, the risk taking is, um, you know, can have complete benefits and be fabulous and, you know, kids with ADHD are not afraid to do something and jump right in and they, they live life. Um, you know, cause they don't think about it. We'll just think about the concept and we'll deal with the consequences later. There's no thinking about them. Um, but you know, they, they do get into problems with drug abuse and crime and driving fast cause that's also stimulating domain. So, um, you know, it, it, it is kind of a plus and a minus of having an iteration of inattentive ADHD. But is there, I mean, is there, you know, I think that, that for a lot of us, you know, especially when we're not diagnosed, it's just okay: Sit down. Right? And we don't realize that the things were drawn to come from this concept of…? but for me, for instance, you know, I never got into, I didn't get into drugs at least not in high school or as kid, um, you know, the worst thing I ever did was smoke. Right. And this was the eighties where smoking was good for you. But, um, you know, it's the premise that it is there. Is there a nature versus nurture component in there? Where, if you know, you, you, you, you look for positive things, or look for things to give you that dopamine, that aren't necessarily negative things.(?) Um, yeah, I, I, I would probably agree with that. Um, my son, as, as well, uh, hasn't gotten into the drugs in high school, doesn't go to parties and, and drank, um, you know, he finds his stimulation in other ways. Um, you know, like, right. He has a Onewheel, I don't know if you know what a one wheel is. Yeah, of course. So, so he just got a one. Yeah. For those who don't know what's next generation Segway with just one wheel on it and and, and you.. He just got on that thing and just took off, you know, he, he went to space camp when he was in seventh grade and they put you in this thing that, um, you know, turns you all around A Multi-Access Trainer. I know exactly what it is. I had a very bad experience with… And he was the first in line to do it, you know? So he's, he's seeking his im, adrenaline out in self-regulating and positive ways. He's not self-regulating with, with drugs and alcohol. Um, is that partially because of the environment that he's in? Uh, probably he's, you know, we have an open dialogue about things like that and, um, you know, so we're kind of steering him away from that type of behavior, but, you know, um, if he wasn't in that type of environment, maybe if my husband and I were constantly gone; working all the time and stuff like that, and he was left on his own, you know, he might try to, you know, get into some of that to help self-regulate. And I think that, that, you know, that's one of the interesting things is that you look at, you look at, um, uh, prisons, you know, it's a 65 to 70% of um, incarcerated males are undiagnosed ADHD. And so it does come down to that question, you know, I mean, for me, you know, my, my being undiagnosed by parents just assumed, okay, he's hyper, let them run around so I'd take my bike after school everyday, and I'd ride around for hours and hours and hours. Right. And then, you know, I don't know if they ever noticed when I came back, I was much calmer. but obviously it was absolutely helpful. Okay. Tell us about the book! Ok! So, um, so the book is in two parts. The first part of the book is my son's story with his inattentive ADHD and the ADHD elephant that lives in his brain. Um, and the second part of the book My experiences raising an ADHD son and I kind of, um, put, you know, some of the science behind ADHD and how that relates to my son's behaviors. And, um, the reason I wrote the book is because there is virtually no information out there on inattentive ADHD and boy s. So, um, when my son was diagnosed, fortunately, he was diagnosed in third grade, which is young for inattentive ADHD. Most of the time, these kids are diagnosed after nine years old, sometimes not until their teens, because, you know, it's what I like to call the silent ADHD, if they're not disruptive and, you know, creating chaos so they're not really noticed. Um, and we were fortunate. He had a teacher in second grade who recognized his symptoms because her son at the time was in high school and he had inattentive ADHD, so we were fortunate that he had that teacher. Um, and at the time is when I was working at, um, Hopkins on the ADHD project. And I was talking to a psychiatrist who was consulting on our research project. And he actually said, there's nothing out there on boys with inattentive ADHD. And of course I went home and started to look and do some research and he was right. So, you know, the purpose is just kind of to increase awareness that this occurs in boys. Um, you know, get it out there. Uh, it does occur in girls as well? It does occur in girls and adults and it's, um, most often discussed in girls and more recently in adults. Okay. And, and obviously it's, it's being discussed more in adults because adults are taking their kids to get diagnosed and they say, huh, it sounds like me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Interesting. What, um, talk for a second about, uh, about your, about your background. What are you, um, what specifically are you studying in terms of drug abuse and behavior and things like that? Um, well, when my son was diagnosed, I stopped working to focus on him. So I haven't done research in quite awhile. Um, but the majority of my research was looking for therapeutics for cocaine abuse and finding cocaine taking behavior. Um, and it was preclinical studies. Um, and then when I worked at Johns Hopkins, Uh, the ADHD study was looking at long-term effects of ADHD medications, because at the time there were no studies on it; long-term effects of ADHD medication. So we looked at, um, physical features. Um, we looked at cognitive functioning. Um, so that was, uh, was the nature of that study. Interesting. That's fascinating stuff. Um, is the book available everywhere? Uh, the book is available on Amazon. Um, and it's available on the, uh, publishers website, um, MSI Press, LLC. Cool. Did you self publish it? I did not. Okay, cool. Excellent. A lot of our, a lot of people are, um, I've talked to a handful of people who've written ADHD books down and they're all self published. Um, just like, yeah, whatever helps people whatever gets it out there. I'm a fan of.. No, yeah, I was very excited. It was picked up by a publisher. I didn't, I didn't have high hopes. And I thought that if it wells, it's never really published, hopefully it made me a better mother to my son because it helped me to understand his brain and to work with him instead of working against him, because he doesn't think the way I think. Yep. Now it's it is, it is, you know, I think that's one of the biggest things that the parents need to understand. I mean, I remember growing up, my parents just didn't understand the difference, you know, why, and then they still treated me a hundred percent wonderfully, you know, and, and I had a great relationship with them and I still do, but they weren't the way I was and it was just a, it was a very, they just never got it. They never really got it. Yeah. Now I asked my son before I, um, but while I was writing the book, I said, tell me what it's like to have ADHD, because I don't know what that's like. And here I'm writing this book about ADHD and I don't really know what it's like to have ADHD. And so he describes it as an overstuffed garbage can where the lid doesn't stay on and everything's falling out on the floor. So that's how he describes his ADHD. Yes! I couldn't come up with a description nearly that eloquent. I love it. I love it. All right. Well, very cool. Um, how can people find you? Um, well, I have, um, my author Facebook page is Kristin M Wilcox PhD, or they can find me at ADHDAdventures on Facebook. [same page] And you get get the book from Here and here on Amazon! Awesome. Kristen, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. It's been a lot of fun. We will definitely check out the book and we will link to it on your Amazon link and in the show notes. And we really appreciate you being here today. This was great. Great. Thanks Peter. I appreciate it. Guys you've been listening to Faster Than Normal. We love when people come to us and say, Hey, I would like to be on the podcast, or when they have a great idea for a great story. And they have a great story themselves. If you're that person who knows someone who has let us know, we're always trying to find new people. We have a plethora!! of new episodes that we've recorded that are in the can that are coming up. The next three months are already filled but if you have someone to let us know, we'll record you and get you on the podcast as well. And you can find me at Peter@shankman.com The podcast is FasterThanNormal.com on iTunes on Stitcher, Google play anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you so much for listening and remember that ADHD and all neurodiversity is a gift, not a curse. And we will see you next week with a brand new episode. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you soon! — Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week!
Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain By Peter Shankman In Faster Than Normal, Shankman shares his hard-won insights and daily hacks for making ADHD a secret weapon for living a full and deeply satisfying life. Both inspiring and practical, the book presents life rules, best practices, and simple but powerful ways to: Harness your creative energy to generate and execute your ideas Direct your hyperfocus to get things done Identify your pitfalls--and avoid them Streamline your daily routine to eliminate distractions Use apps and other tech innovations to free up your time and ener Filled with ingenious hacks and supportive self-care advice, this is the positive, practical book the ADHD community has long needed - and is also an invaluable handbook for anyone who's sick of feeling overwhelmed and wants to drive their faster-than-normal brain at maximum speed...without crashing. Takeaways Focus on changing your brain chemistry first thing each day by doing an exercise. Eliminate choice wherever possible. The less time you have to spend on creating decisions, the more time you can spend on things that matter. Having an adequate sleep and eating well has a huge impact. Host rating for 'Faster Than Normal' Nico Rating: 8/10 Sam Rating: 9/10 Subscribe! If you enjoyed the podcast please subscribe and rate it. And of course, share with your friends! You can also listen and join us on ReasonFM (https://reason.fm/podcast/wiser-than-yesterday) or just ask questions. Don't Forget to like, comment, share and subscribe See podvine.com/privacy-policy for privacy and opt-out information.
Peter Shankman is serial entrepreneur, author and founder of Help a Reporter Out. His ability to cultivate his ADHD and how he has turned it into a superpower is a fascinating part of this interview. Highlights from the interview: What are the voices in Peter's head like?Why working out helps his massive ADHD.How the diagnosis of ADHD in adulthood helped him understand himself better.The balance of being introverted and extroverted and how he uses this to his advantage in his business.Cultivating the superpowers within his ADHD, so they support his life instead of tear him a part.Understanding what matters is key to living the life that he wants.Accepting that you did the best you could with what you have.Understanding the power of bravery by slaying the demons in your head.Why he sleeps in his gym clothes.Our inner demons are often too strong to defeat.Why he abstains from drinking alcohol.Where he gets his passion for life.How he measures his work happiness.Where he does his long form writing.Humans are not meant to be sedentary creatures and how he figures out ways to keep moving throughout the day.What activity helps him calm his inner demons.Why he focuses on being slightly better than everyone else. He doesn't believe in being a superstar. How he comes up with all his ideas.Finding unique ways to solve problems.How people can make a big leap in their careers.The importance of grounding yourself in gratitude.Why he sees his ADHD as his greatest gift.How he views failure and how it's helped him build his resilience.A failed company that was too early to the market.How his cats kept him humble after he sold his company for millions of dollars.Everyone's favorite part of this podcast - Peter's favorite things. You can learn about Peter over at his website Shankman.com. You can also connect with him on Twitter. And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I'll do my best to get them on. If you love the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!
Are you curious about the history and purpose of using instruments and assessments in leadership development courses and training? In this episode, Drs. Marcy Levy Shankman and Ralph A. Gigliotti share ideas on incorporating best practices from this special issue into teaching courses or planning training activities. The co-editors used a cross-sector lens to expand the application of the instruments and assessments to various industries. Some of the resources in this episode include: ----more---- New Directions for Student Leadership #170: Using Inventories and Assessments to Enhance Leadership Development The Role of Leadership Educators: Transforming Learning
In this episode of "A Conversation With," I sat down with Patrick Coker an Actor, Director, TV Writer, and Executive Producer. Patrick talked about his rise to fame as a writer and director during our conversation. He also shared the first time he was asked to write for television, but with absolutely no experience in TV writing. Here is a little excerpt of our conversation: "Patrick Corker: Well, the first time I was asked to write tv episode, I had never done that either because up until that time, the only thing I had written with shorts and narrative features and writing for tv is a totally different monster. But you know you you get opportunities, and the only thing that can happen is you could feel that's the worst thing that can happen ▪ but you know what if you don't fail, but if you succeed, you know what you want to do and that pushes you further towards your ultimate goal. So I mean, if you fail, even when you fail, there's lessons learned there. So the next opportunity to get, you don't have to worry about making those mistakes. " Patrick Coker BIO: Patrick Coker has been involved in the Theater, Film, and TV industry since the mid-'90s, first as an actor and then stepping behind the camera as a director and content provider. A graduate of the LIU Media Arts Program with an M.F.A. in Directing he has been the creative mind behind many indie music videos, award-winning short films, and the feature film Shankman's Deli. , He has been part of the writing team for BET's TV series “TALES”, executive produced by Irv Gotti since its inception, and for the upcoming season, 3 is serving as Co-Showrunner. Submit Your Short Film: The Film Collective --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/aconversationwithfm/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/aconversationwithfm/support
Tracing Mead's career as an ethnographer, as the early voice of public anthropology, and as a public figure, this elegantly written biography links the professional and personal sides of her career. Paul Shankman's Margaret Mead (Berghahn Books, 2021) looks at Mead's early career through the end of World War II, when she produced her most important anthropological works, as well as her role as a public figure in the post-war period, through the 1960s until her death in 1978. The criticisms of Mead are also discussed and analyzed. This short volume is an ideal starting point for anyone wanting to learn about, arguably, the most famous anthropologist of the twentieth century. Adam Bobeck is a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Leipzig. His PhD is entitled “Object-Oriented Azadari: Shi'i Muslim Rituals and Ontology”. For more about his work, see www.adambobeck.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Episode Description: Carly Shankman is a cancer survivor, business owner, health coach, and momma based in Austin, Texas. In this episode, Carly shares her healing journey from thyroid cancer. She explains her experience at holistic cancer clinics, how she started Alchemy Juice, and how she found the "why" to her cancer. Carly shares her daily practices and detox protocols. Complete show notes are here Carly's Instagram here Visit Carly's website here
Building several successful enterprises while living with undiagnosed ADHD is a tough endeavor, but it can also be an interesting take on life. In this first episode of Before IT Happened, our host Donna Loughlin talks to marketing expert, entrepreneur, and best-selling author Peter Shankman. Peter was a founding editor of AOL News before we'd ever heard of online journalism. He leaned into the early dot-com boom by launching Geek Factory, one of the first PR firms designed to put a spotlight on the tech visionaries of the era. He later created HARO, a database used to connect journalists and sources around the world. He sold both Geek Factory and HARO, but he didn't stop there. His ADHD diagnosis has led him to a bigger understanding of life reflected in his best-selling book “Faster Than Normal” and his more recent undertaking helping companies understand neurodiversity. Listen now to hear Peter's unique journey from academic cautionary tale to a multimedia juggernaut by turning his ADHD brain into a superpower. Before any world-changing innovation there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. Jump straight into: (03:10) - Peter's artistic upbringing with undiagnosed ADHD and how journalism at Boston University saved him - “To go from being on academic probation for two and a half straight years to receiving BU's Alumni Award was a nice moment.” (07:48) - Building a newsroom for AOL in the early internet days - “AOL was the internet, no question about it. I was so early in the game, I actually had peter@aol.com, which was amazing.” (11:10) - Starting Geek Factory - “I called my mom and I said, ‘I'm going to go out on my own, I'm going to try to start a PR firm and when it fails, I'll get a job.'” (13:14) - The story behind Peter's journalism mailing list HARO (Help a Reporter Out) - “Originally it was a Facebook group, and that led to the formation of HARO. It blew up beyond my wildest dreams. I got very very lucky.” (15:29) - Getting acquired by Vocus and Peter's first hours as a multimillionaire - “It probably took about five months from initial contact to acquisition. If we didn't have lawyers, it would have taken a week.” (17:23) - The secret to becoming hyper-focused - “I rock at what I'm good at and I let other people do what I suck at because they just do it so much better than I ever could.” (20:13) - Peter's ADHD diagnosis and how it helped him get a new understanding of life - “I'm very happy. I'm very fortunate. I think that all the mistakes and all the screw-ups, everything I've done has led me to this point.” (26:09) - Using skydiving as a drug - “It is the ultimate reboot. I can't get back on the plane, I can't stop and redo it. I will either make the decision to live or I'll make the decision to die. Life doesn't get simpler than those 45 to 60 seconds of free fall.” (28:33) - All things Shankman: How Peter manages a whole ecosystem of projects - “All I'm really doing is I'm telling stories about things I love and I am so ridiculously blessed that I get paid to tell stories about things I love.” (31:13) - Helping companies be neurodiverse friendly - “The goal is to understand what the neuro-diverse person needs and to teach companies how to be more understanding.” (33:19) - Faster Than Normal, Peter's future projects and the best advice he ever received - “Basically everything I have and all the success I've had has come from the fact that I listen.” Episode Resources Connect with Peter at https://www.shankman.com/ (Shankman.com) Read Peter Shankman's book https://www.amazon.com/Faster-Than-Normal-audiobook/dp/B07648CSNN (Faster Than Normal) Listen to Peter Shankman's...
Are you suffering floaters, macular degeneration, cataracts? Do you feel frustrated that your eyes are getting worse every year? In this episode, I give a presentation during my recent intensive workshop, and offer solutions to many of the vision problems that people are concerned about! SUMMARY KEYWORDSeye, called, lens, cataracts, vitreous, vision, glaucoma, macula, talk, starts, cloudiness, important, moro reflex, people, lymph system, brain, optometrist, reflex, nervous system, prescription 00:05Hello, everyone, its Dr. Sam, I'd like to welcome you to my Eyeclarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to Hello at Dr. Sam Berne calm. Now to the latest I clarity episode. I like this picture of the eye because it's a picture of where we're entering this black hole, which is called our pupil. And the pupil is the light regulator, it allows light into our eyes. And based on our sympathetic parasympathetic nervous system, that's the part of our nervous system that regulates our stress levels. The muscles around the pupil are called the iris. And based on again, our stress level, this pupil can get dilated. And the bigger it gets, the lighter it allows in. The smaller it gets, the more regulates less light getting in. And I'm going to talk a little bit about stress, and how this pupil response changes based on our stress level. So the whole my whole purpose of this class and my overall 37 years this is going on my 38th year, devoting my entire career of offering a new direction and vision care. And today and tonight, and this month, we're going to talk about different strategies, protocols, exercises that can help you reach your goals. So first off, I'd like to talk about the teachers who've had a major impact in my life. And many of these teachers, who came before me, developed this whole body of work called holistic optometry, developmental optometry. And the first person on this list is a guy most of you don't know there are a few optometrists taking the course. His name was am Skeffington. He was a doctor who was a physician and an optometrist. He started behavioral, developmental optometry in the 1920s in the Midwest. And he started to talk about the eyes as a whole-body system. That's not talked about today. You know, when you go to an eye doctor, the eyes are separate from the body and we're just looking at it as a mechanical camera. And it only gets worse with age. Well, Skeffington started to teach optometrists how to think of the eyes as it related to the body. Number two, Dr. Albert Shankman, he was my optometrist, and he was a holistic doctor. I met him in his mid 70s. I was in my late 20s. And he was the doctor I went to, that helped me completely dissolve my myopia, and astigmatism. And he took a very global Mind Body approach. He incorporated yoga, meditation, and he wrote a book called vision enhancement training. I'm not even sure you can get it anymore. But it's a book that talks about the mind body connection as it relates to the eyes and many of the philosophical things that I present or based on my work with Dr. Shankman. The next optometrist, Dr. Albert Sutton, was one of my dear mentors. He was a world-renowned developmental optometrist did a lot of research in child development. He also was very holistic he worked with nutrition. And he was one of my dear friends who was instrumental in many of the different things many of the different things I do today. 05:01Number four, Dr. John Streff's and Dr. Dick Apell. These were holistic optometrists. And I studied with them when I went to the Gesell Institute. So the Gesell Institute, which was affiliated with Yale University, was started by Dr. Gesell who was a physician in 1948. I went there in the mid 80s.
Dr. Marcy Levy Shankman, leadership coach and strategist for the Cleveland Metropolitain School District, joins me to talk about emotionally intelligent leadership, taking risks to learn from them, and being a reflective leader.